LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


WHITTIER. 


WORKS  BY  B.  O.  FLOWER. 


THE      CENTURY    OF     SIR    THOMAS 

MORE.     (Illustrated.)  Fancy  cloth,  -  $1.50 


PERSONS,  PLACES  AND  IDEAS  :  Mis 
cellaneous  Essays.  (Richly  illus 
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GERALD  MASSEY :    Poet,    Prophet  and 

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CIVILIZATION'S  INFERNO  ;  or,  Studies 

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LESSONS  LEARNED  FROM  OTHER 
LIVES  :  A  Book  of  Short  Biographies 
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HITTIER:   PROPHET, 
SEER   AND   MAN. 


WITH  PORTRAIT. 


BY  B.  O.  FLOWER,  AUTHOR  OF 

"THE  CENTURY  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE," 
"GERALD  MASSE Y,"  "CIVILIZATION'S 
INFERNO,"  "THE  NEW  TIME,"  ETC. 


THE  ARENA  PUBLISHING 
CO.,  BOSTON,  MASS. 
MDCCCXCVI. 


I. H  WARY 


COPYRIGHTED,  1896, 
BY  B.   O.  FLOWER 

All  Rights  Reserved. 


ARENA  PRESS. 


THIS  VOLUME  IS 

AFFECTIONATELY  DEDICATED  TO 
MY  NIECE, 

<5ertruDe  dfc.  mnley, 

WHOSE    BRIGHT,  THOUGHTFUL, 

AND  SINCERE    NATURE  HAS 

ENDEARED  HER  TO  ALL 

WHO    KNOW     HER. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

INTRODUCTION iii 

I.    A    BAREFOOT    BOY     WHO    WAS     AI^O    A 

DREAMER.  3 

II.    A  PROPHET  OF  FREEDOM 45 

III.  A  MODERN  APOSTLE  OF  LOFTY  SPIRITUALITY  105 

IV.  WHITTIER,  THE  MAN 131 


INTRODUCTION. 


failed  to  live  up  to  their  fine  teachings  and, 
in  unguarded  moments  and  hours  of  temp 
tation,  have  so  fallen  that  the  recollection 
of  their  shortcomings  rests  like  a  sable 
cloud  over  their  noble  utterances.  Not  so 
with  Whittier;  his  life  was  exceptionally 
pure,  and  while  I  imagine  no  man  ever 
reaches  at  all  times  his  ideals,  our  Quaker 
poet,  in  a  greater  degree  than  most  of  us, 
maintained  that  serenity  of  soul,  that  purity 
of  thought  and  kindliness  of  nature,  which 
reflect  the  divine  side  of  man.  That  he 
sometimes  fell  short  of  his  high  ideals,  is 
shown  in  many  of  his  own  lines,  notably  in 
the  following  from  "  My  Triumph : " 

Let  the  thick  curtain  fall  ; 
I  better  know  than  all 
How  little  I  have  gained, 
How  vast  the  unattained. 

#  #  *  # 

Sweeter  than  any  sung, 
My  songs  that  found  no  tongue  ; 
Nobler  than  any  fact, 
My  wish  which  failed  of  act. 

iv 


And  this  consciousness  of  a  failure  to 
live  up  to  his  own  highest  level  in  thought 
and  aspiration  is  further  illustrated  in  the 
following  touching  story  told  by  Mrs.  Mary 
B.  Claflin,  in  her  "  Personal  Recollections  of 
Whittier : " 

"  The  morning  mail,"  observes  this  lady, 
"usually  brought  him  a  great  number  of 
letters  (often  as  many  as  fifty) ;  and  one 
morning  as  he  was  looking  over  the  pile  be 
fore  him,  he  lingered  a  long  time  over  one, 
and  looked  troubled,  as  though  it  contained 
some  sad  news.  At  length  handing  it  to 
me,  he  said :  '  I  wish  thee  would  read  that 
letter;'  and  then,  with  his  head  downcast, 
and  his  deep,  melancholy  eyes  looking,  as  it 
seemed,  into  the  very  depths  of  human 
mysteries,  he  sat  still  till  I  had  finished  it. 

"It  was  written  by  one  whose  life  had 
been  spent  on  a  remote  farm  among  the  hills 
of  New  Hampshire,  away  from  every  privi 
lege  her  nature  craved — a  most  pathetic  let- 


ter  written,  it  seemed,  out  of  the  deepest 
human  longing  for  sympathy,  for  compan 
ionship  and  uplifting.  The  lonely  woman 
wrote,  she  said,  to  tell  Mr.  Whittier  what 
his  poems  had  been  to  her  during  all  the 
years  of  her  desolate  heart-yearning  for 
education,  for  enlightenment,  and  for  touch 
with  the  great  outside  world.  She  added  : 
6  In  my  darkest  moments  I  have  found  light 
and  comfort  in  your  poems,  which  I  always 
keep  by  my  side ;  and  as  I  never  expect  to 
have  the  privilege  of  looking  into  your  face, 
I  feel  that  I  must  tell  you,  before  I  leave 
this  world,  what  you  have  been  through 
your  writings  to  one  and,  I  have  no  doubt, 
to  many  a  longing  heart  and  homesick  soul. 
I  have  never  been  in  a  place  so  dark  and 
hopeless  that  I  could  not  find  light  and  com 
fort  and  hope  in  your  poems ;  and  when  I 
go  into  my  small  room  and  close  my  door 
upon  the  worries  and  perplexing  cares  that 
constantly  beset  me,  and  sit  down  by  my 


VI 


window  that  looks  out  over  the  hills,  which 
have  been  my  only  companions,  I  never  fail  to 
find  in  the  volume,  which  is  always  by  my 
side,  some  word  of  peace  and  comfort  to  my 
longing  heart/ 

"The  letter  was  such  as  would  bring 
tears  from  any  sympathetic  heart,  and  I 
remarked,  returning  it  to  him,  'I  would 
rather  have  the  testimony  you  are  constantly 
receiving  from  forlorn  and  hungry  souls — 
the  assurance  that  you  are  helping  God's 
neglected  children — than  the  crown  of  any 
queen  on  earth.' 

"With  tearful  eyes  and  choking  voice, 
he  replied  :  '  Such  letters  greatly  humiliate 
me.  I  can  sometimes  write  from  a  high 
plane,  but  thee  knows  I  cannot  live  up  to 
it  all  the  time.  I  wish  I  could  think  I 
deserved  all  the  kind  things  said  of  me." 

This  touching  incident  is  thoroughly 
characteristic  of  the  life  of  one  in  whom  we 
find  humility,  sincerity,  simplicity,  sym- 


vii 


pathy,  only  equalled  by  a  passionate  devo 
tion  to  freedom,  justice,  and  truth — a  man 
who  was  at  once  a  poet  of  nature,  an  apostle 
of  liberty,  and  a  prophet  of  progress.  He 
interpreted  in  a  manner  thoroughly  intelli 
gible  to  the  most  unschooled  mind  the 
profoundest  truths  of  life,  which  pertain  to 
the  spirit,  and  which  come  only  to  the  mystic, 
who  in  the  hushed  chambers  of  his  soul  hears 
speak  the  still,  small  voice  of  the  Infinite. 
Finally,  and  crowning  all,  his  life,  of  which 
I  have  spoken,  was  such  as  to  give  special 
emphasis  to  his  inspired  lines,  conferring 
on  them  a  peculiar  value  for  aspiring  youth. 


viii 


A  BAREFOOT  BOY  WHO  WAS 
ALSO  A  DREAMER. 


"  Blessings  on  thee,  little  man, 
Barefoot  boy,  with  cheek  of  tan  ! 
With  thy  turned-up  pantaloons, 
And  thy  merry  whistled  tunes ; 
With  thy  red  lip,  redder  still 
Kissed  by  strawberries  on  the  hill; 
With  the  sunshine  on  thy  face, 
Through  thy  torn  brim's  jaunty  grace; 
From  my  heart  I  give  thee  joy, — 
I  was  once  a  barefoot  boy!  " 

—Whittled s  "Barefoot  Boy." 

"  I  think  at  the  age  of  which  thy  note  inquires,  I  found 
about  equal  satisfaction  in  an  old  rural  home  with  the 
shifting  panorama  of  seasons,  in  reading  the  few  books 
within  my  reach,  and  in  dreaming  of  something  wonderful 
and  grand  in  the  future." 

— Whittier  to  a  youthful  correspondent. 


I.    3B.  Barefoot  2Bop  to&o  toa#  al£o  a 
2Dreamer. 

;OHN  GREENLEAF  WHITTIER 
was  born  on  the  17th  of  Decem 
ber,  1807,  in  a  typical  New  Eng 
land  farmhouse,  a  short  distance  from  the 
town  of  Haverhill,  in  Massachusetts.  His 
father  was  poor ;  rigid  economy  and  inces 
sant  toil  on  the  part  of  all  members  of  the 
household  were  required  in  order  to  provide 
life's  necessities  and  lift  a  debt  which  hung 
over  the  dear  old  homestead.  If,  however, 
the  little  Quaker  boy  was  schooled  in  pov 
erty,  it  cannot  be  said  that  he  was  poor  in 
any  other  sense  than  that  he  possessed  little 
of  that  which  gold  may  purchase.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  few  children  enter  the  arena 


of  life  so  dowered  with  inestimable  riches  as 
the  little  barefoot  boy,  who  was  destined  to 
become  New  England's  poet  of  home  life 
and  America's  prophet  of  freedom.  Behind 
him  were  generations  of  pure,  high-minded 
and  sturdy  ancestors.  In  his  parents  we 
find  united  the  rare  charm  which  marks  the 
life  of  the  consistent  and  profoundly  relig 
ious  Quaker  and  the  sturdy,  almost  austere 
morality  of  the  Puritan  shorn,  however,  of 
that  harsh,  unrelenting  and  intolerant  spirit 
which  not  unfrequently  shadowed  and  made 
repulsive  the  otherwise  noble  lives  of  the  early 
Puritans. 

Nor  were  the  hereditary  influences  and 
prenatal  conditions  more  favorable  than  the 
environment  that  enclosed  his  early  years. 
Biographers  have  frequently  deplored  the 
poverty  of  Whittier's  parents,  which  pre 
vented  the  youth  from  having  access  to 
many  books  adapted  to  the  young ;  but  I 
am  by  no  means  convinced  that  this  appar- 


ent  misfortune  was  not  a  blessing,  rather 
than  an  evil.  Many  of  the  men  who  have 
accomplished  most  for  the  moral  uplift  and 
enduring  progress  of  the  race  have  had 
access  to  but  few  books  in  youth.  Indeed, 
the  studious  child  who  possesses  few  books 
soon  assimilates  their  contents  and  uncon 
sciously  acquires  the  habit  of  retaining  the 
facts  which  have  been  drawn  from  their  pages, 
in  a  manner  quite  unknown  to  those  who  are 
surfeited  with  literature  and  who  early  learn 
to  skim  over  rather  than  carefully  peruse  a 
printed  page ;  and  this  early  acquired  habit 
of  retaining  facts  remains  with  the  person 
throughout  life.  Again,  the  thoughtful  and 
ambitious  child  whose  literature  is  so  limited 
that  he  soon  masters  the  knowledge  con 
tained  in  the  books  within  his  reach  early 
turns  his  mind  in  other  directions  in  search 
of  knowledge  ;  he  becomes  a  close  observer 
of  Nature  and,  if  possessed  of  imagination, 
the  sky,  earth  and  sea,  the  changing  seasons, 


the  forest  and  the  flowers,  the  birds  and  bees 
— each  of  these  bears  a  message  to  his  brain. 
We  must  also  remember  that  the  child  who 
from  early  youth  has  been  surrounded  by 
books  comes  to  rely  too  much  on  the  opinion 
and  thoughts  of  others,  and  loses  an  origin 
ality  in  idea  and  expression  which  has  never 
been  properly  fostered  by  educational  pro 
cesses.  This,  fortunately,  Whittier  escaped ; 
what  he  lacked  in  book-learning  was  more 
than  made  up  by — 

Knowledge  never  learned  of  schools, 
Of  the  wild  bee's  morning  chase, 
Of  the  wild-flower's  time  and  place, 
Flight  of  fowl,  and  habitude 
Of  the  tenants  of  the  wood; 
How  the  tortoise  bears  his  shell, 
How  the  woodchuck  digs  his  cell, 
And  the  ground-mole  sinks  his  well; 
How  the  robin  feeds  her  young, 
How  the  oriole's  nest  is  hung; 
Where  the  whitest  lilies  blow, 
Where  the  freshest  berries  grow, 
Where  the  groundnut  trails  its  vine, 
Where  the  wood-grape's  clusters  shine; 


Of  the  black  wasp's  cunning  way, 
Mason  of  his  walls  of  clay, 
And  the  architectural  plans 
Of  gray  hornet  artisans  ! 

Nature  teaches  those  children  who  will 
hearken  to  her  words,  and  she  is  never  false 
in  word  or  note  or  picture.  If  the  literature 
of  the  Whittier  family  was  very  limited,  she 
was  prodigal  with  treasures  which  appealed 
to  the  eye,  ear  and  imagination  of  the 
Quaker  boy. 

I  was  rich  jn  flowers  and  trees, 
Humming  birds  and  honey  bees; 
For  my  sport  the  squirrel  played, 
Plied  the  snouted  mole  his  spade ; 
For  my  taste  the  blackberry  cone 
Purpled  over  hedge  and  stone; 
Laughed  the  brook  for  my  delight 
Through  the  day  and  through  the  night, 
Whispering  at  the  garden  wall, 
Talked  with  me  from  fall  to  fall ; 
Mine  the  sand-rimmed  pickerel  pond, 
Mine  the  walnut  slopes  beyond, 
Mine  on  bending  orchard  trees 
Apples  of  Hesperides  ! 
Still  as  rny  horizon  grew, 
Larger  grew  my  riches,  too. 


Whittier  never  lost  sight  of  the  treasures 
which  were  his  amid  what  men  of  to-day 
would  term  biting  poverty.  On  one  occasion 
when  casting  a  retrospective  glance  over  the 
long  vanished  past,  he  thus  characterized  his 
early  lot : 

A  farmer's  son, 

Proud  of  field-lore  and  harvest  craft,  and  feeling 
All  their  fine  possibilities,  how  rich 
And  restful  even  poverty  and  toil 
Become  when  beauty,  harmony,  and  love 
Sit  at  their  humble  hearth  as  angels  sat 
At  evening  in  the  Patriarch's  tent,  when  man 
Makes  labor  noble  ! 

The  old  homestead  of  the  Whittier  family 
has  been  endeared  to  the  nation  by  the 
many  bits  of  descriptive  verse  which  the 
poet  has  woven  into  his  poems  of  New  Eng 
land  life.  It  was  a  large  frame  building 
somewhat  better  than  the  average  farmhouse 
of  the  period.  Around  it  grew  a  variety  of 
hardy  trees,  such  as  maple,  walnut,  butter 
nut,  and  the  picturesque  Lombardy  poplar. 


In  one  of  his  prose  sketches  the  poet  thus 
describes  the  site  of  the  old  home  : 

"It  was  surrounded  by  woods  in  all 
directions  save  to  the  southeast,  where  a 
break  in  the  leafy  wall  revealed  a  vista  of 
low  green  meadows,  picturesque  with 
wooded  islands  and  jutting  capes  of  upland; 
through  these  a  small  brook,  noisy  enough 
as  it  foamed,  rippled  and  laughed  down  the 
rocky  falls.  By  our  garden  side  wound 
silently  and  scarcely  visible  a  still  larger 
stream  known  as  the  Country  Brook." 

Rising  abruptly  almost  from  the  Whittier 
garden  was  Job's  Hill,  a  lofty  eminence 
from  which  a  magnificent  view  of  the  sur 
rounding  country  could  be  obtained, 
although  the  height  was  not  so  favorable  in 
this  respect  as  Great  Hill,  a  little  distance 
further  on.  It  was  on  the  slope  of  Job's 
Hill  that  the  young  poet  when  quite  small 
suddenly  found  himself  confronted  with 


great  peril,  from  which  he  was  saved  only 
by  what  in  a  human  being  we  should  call 
presence  of  mind,  on  the  part  of  a  favorite 
ox  named  Old  Butler.  Mr.  Samuel  T. 
Pickard,  whose  "  Life  and  Letters  of  Whit- 
tier"  is  the  latest  and  most  authoritative 
utterance  on  the  life  of  the  poet,  thus 
describes  this  interesting  incident : 

"One  side  of  Job's  hill  is  exceedingly 
steep — too  steep  for  such  an  unwieldy  ani 
mal  as  an  ox  to  descend  rapidly  in  safety. 
Greenleaf  went  to  the  pasture  one  day  with 
a  bag  of  salt  for  the  cattle,  and  Old  Butler 
from  the  brow  of  the  hill  recognized  him 
and  knew  his  errand.  As  the  boy  was  bent 
over,  shaking  the  salt  out  of  the  bag,  the 
ox  came  down  the  hill  towards  him  with 
flying  leaps,  and  his  speed  was  so  great  that 
he  could  not  check  himself.  He  would  have 
crushed  his  young  master,  but  by  a  supreme 
effort,  gathering  himself  together  at  the 

10 


right  moment,  the  noble  creature  leaped 
straight  into  the  air,  over  the  head  of  the 
boy,  and  came  to  the  ground  far  below  with 
a  tremendous  concussion  and  without  serious 
injury  to  himself." 

The  same  author  gives  an  additional 
anecdote  about  this  favorite  ox,  as  related 
by  Mr.  Whittier : 

"  Quaker  meetings  were  sometimes  held  in 
the  large  kitchen  at  his  father's  house.  One 
summer  day,  on  such  an  occasion,  this  ox 
had  the  curiosity  to  put  his  head  in  at  the 
open  window  and  take  a  survey  of  the 
assembly.  While  a  sweet-voiced  woman  was 
speaking,  Old  Butler  paid  strict  attention, 
but  when  she  sat  down  and  there  arose  a 
loud-voiced  brother,  the  ox  withdrew  his 
head  from  the  window,  lifted  his  tail  in  air 
and  went  off  bellowing.  This  bovine  criti 
cism  was  greatly  enjoyed  by  the  younger 
members  of  the  meeting." 

11 


The  most  important  room  in  the  old 
homestead,  as  it  was  lovingly  called  by  the 
poet,  was  the  kitchen,  immortalized  in 
"  Snow-Bound ;  "  but,  besides  this  room,  on 
the  ground  floor  were  other  apartments,  one 
of  which  was  always  regarded  somewhat  as 
a  sanctuary  by  the  children  and  was  known 
as  "mother's  room."  On  the  second  floor 
were  several  chambers  which  possess  special 
interest  for  lovers  of  the  poet.  In  one  of 
these  the  young  poet  made  his  experiment 
in  lifting,  which  Trowbridge  has  so  aptly 
described  in  one  of  his  delightful  little 
poems.  The  story  is  as  follows :  One  day 
during  the  working  hours  young  John,  mus 
ing  on  the  fact  that  he  found  no  difficulty 
in  lifting  his  brother  Matt,  and  that  his 
brother  had  also  frequently  lifted  him,  came 
to  the  conclusion  that,  if  the  two  lifted 
together,  both  would  simultaneously  rise. 
This  conclusion,  it  will  be  seen,  although 
plausible  on  its  face,  like  so  many  things  in 


12 


life  which  involve  factors  that  have  not 
been  considered  was  destined  to  prove  a  dis 
appointment  to  the  youthful  experimenter. 
The  poet  imparted  his  deductions  to  his 
brother,  who  thought  them  reasonable,  and 
forthwith  the  experiment  was  tried  in  their 
room.  Somehow  it  did  not  work,  but  as 
Trowbridge  observes : 

'Twas  a  shrewd  notion  none  the  less, 
And  still,  in  spite  of  ill  success, 

It  somehow  has  succeeded. 
Kind  Nature  smiled  on  that  wise  child, 

Nor  could  her  love  deny  him 
The  large  fulfilment  of  his  plan; 
Since  he  who  lifts  his  brother  man 

In  turn  is  lifted  by  him. 

Whittier  was  an  ethical  philosopher  rather 
than  a  scientist,  and  the  idea  he  conceived 
was  neither  false  nor  unphilosophical  in  the 
ethical  realm,  or  world  of  conduct,  as  his 
own  life  illustrates. 

Many  of  those  most  delightful  pictures  of 

13 


New  England  life  which  were  indelibly  im 
pressed  upon  the  sensitive  plate  of  his  brain, 
at  this  time  when  nature  taught  the  artless 
boy,  hold  for  us  a  special  charm,  due  to 
their  revealing  the  secret  hopes,  loves  and 
disappointments  which  entered  into  his  life. 
While  it  is  probable  that  Whittier  does  not 
reproduce  in  detail  actual  experiences  when 
he  reveals  to  us  love  welling  high  in  his 
heart — for  pictures  of  this  character  are 
usually  held  sacred  and  carefully  guarded 
from  an  unsympathetic  world,  even  when 
the  profound  emotions  which  they  awaken 
lend  power  to  the  flights  of  the  imagination 
— there  can  be  little  doubt  but  that  he 
experienced  every  emotion  which  he  so  sim 
ply  and  beautifully  depicts.  Thus,  when  we 
read  the  following  exquisite  lines  from  "  My 
Playmate,"  we  see  behind  the  moaning 
pines  on  Ramoth  Hill,  the  falling  blossoms 
eddying  in  the  fitful  breeze,  the  melody  of 
the  robin's  song  or  the  gay  plumage  of  the 

14 


oriole,  beyond  the  violet-sprinkled  sod,  be 
yond  the  graceful  waving  branches  of  the 
birch,  beyond  all  these  beauties  and  melodies 
of  Nature,  the  workings  of  the  human 
heart;  we  catch  a  glimpse  of  something 
which  is  always  sacred,  something  in  the 
presence  of  which  "  the  soul  kneels  though 
the  body  may  remain  erect,"  and  that  some 
thing  is  the  Holy  of  Holies  of  the  human 
heart  from  which  the  poet  for  a  moment 
lifts  the  veil: 

The  pines  were  dark  on  Ramoth  Hill, 

Their  song  was  soft  and  low  ; 
The  blossoms  in  the  sweet  May  wind 

Were  falling  like  the  snow. 

The  blossoms  drifted  at  our  feet, 

The  orchard  birds  sang  clear  ; 
The  sweetest  and  the  saddest  day 

It  seemed  of  all  the  year. 

For,  more  to  me  than  birds  or  flowers, 

My  playmate  left  her  home, 
And  took  with  her  the  laughing  spring, 

The  music  and  the  bloom. 


15 


She  kissed  the  lips  of  kith  and  kin, 

She  laid  her  hand  in  mine  : 
What  more  could  ask  the  bashful  boy 

Who  fed  her  father's  kine  ? 

She  left  us  in  the  bloom  of  May; 

The  constant  years  told  o'er 
Their  seasons  with  as  sweet  May  morns, 

But  she  came  back  no  more. 

She  lives  where  all  the  golden  year 

Her  summer  roses  blow  ; 
The  dusky  children  of  the  sun 

Before  her  come  and  go. 

There,  haply,  with  her  jewelled  hands 
She  smooths  her  silken  gown — 

No  more  the  homespun  lap  wherein 
I  shook  the  walnuts  down. 

I  see  her  face,  I  hear  her  voice — 

Does  she  remember  mine  ? 
And  what  to  her  is  now  the  boy 

Who  fed  her  father's  kine  ? 

What  cares  she  that  the  orioles  build 

For  other  eyes  than  ours, — 
That  other  hands  with  nuts  are  filled, 

And  other  laps  with  flowers  ? 


16 


O  playmate  in  the  golden  time  I 

Our  mossy  seat  is  green, 
Its  fringing  violets  blossom  yet, 

The  old  trees  o'er  it  lean, 

The  winds  so  sweet  with  birch  and  fern 

A  sweeter  memory  blow, 
And  there  in  spring  the  veeries  sing 

The  song  of  long  ago. 

And  still  the  pines  of  Ramoth  wood 

Are  moaning  like  the  sea, — 
The  moaning  of  the  sea  of  change 

Between  myself  and  thee  ! 

Again,  these  simple  but  natural  lines  have 
won  their  way  into  the  hearts  of  English- 
speaking  people,  because  in  them  our  poet, 
in  picturing  a  boyhood  scene,  has  imbued  it 
with  sentiment  so  delicately  expressed  and 
so  true,  that  the  heart  of  humanity,  being 
one,  responds  to  that  which  recalls  youth's 
sweet  dream,  when  for  the  first  time  all 
things  are  glorified  with  the  indefinable 
rapture  of  love's  awakening : 

17 


Still  sits  the  schoolliouse  by  the  road, 

A  ragged  beggar  sunning  ; 
Around  it  still  the  sumachs  grow, 

And  blackberry  vines  are  running. 

Within,  the  master's  desk  is  seen, 
Deep  scarred  by  raps  official ; 

The  warping  floor,  the  battered  seats, 
The  jackknife's  carved  initial; 

The  charcoal  frescos  on  its  wall; 

Its  door's  worn  sill,  betraying 
The  feet  that,  creeping  slow  to  school, 

Went  storming  out  to  playing  ! 

Long  years  ago  a  winter  sun 

Shone  over  it  at  setting ; 
Lit  up  its  western  window  panes, 

And  low  eaves'  icy  fretting. 

It  touched  the  tangled,  golden  curls 
And  brown  eyes,  full  of  grieving, 

Of  one  who  still  her  steps  delayed 
When  all  the  school  were  leaving. 

For  near  her  stood  the  little  boy 

Her  childish  favor  singled, 
His  cap  pulled  low  upon  a  face 

Where  pride  and  shame  were  mingled. 


18 


Pushing  with  restless  feet  the  snow 

To  right  and  left,  he  lingered, 
As  restlessly  her  tiny  hands 

The  blue-checked  apron  fingered. 

He  saw  her  lift  her  eyes  ;  he  felt 

The  soft  hand's  light  caressing, 
And  heard  the  tremble  of  her  voice, 

As  if  a  fault  confessing  : 

"I'm  sorry  that  I  spelt  the  word  ; 

I  hate  to  go  above  you, 
Because,"  — the  brown  eyes  lower  fell, — 
"  Because,  you  see,  I  love  you! " 

Still  memory  to  a  gray-haired  man 

That  sweet  child-face  is  showing. 
Dear  girl !  the  grasses  on  her  grave 

Have  forty  years  been  growing  ! 

He  lives  to  learn,  in  life's  hard  school, 

How  few  who  pass  above  him 
Lament  their  triumph  and  his  loss, 

Like  her, — because  they  love  him. 

But  of  all  the  poems  descriptive  of  child 
life  and  New  England  scenes  and  incidents 
which  were  absorbed  by  his  plastic  brain 
while  he  was  still  a  boy  and  destined  to  be 
marvellously  developed  in  later  years,  none 


19 


equals  that  superb  idyl  of  the  old-time  New 
England  winter,  "  Snow-Bound."  In  this 
creation  we  have  some  wonderfully  faithful 
pictures,  almost  photographic  in  quality, 
although  to  a  certain  extent  idealized. 
"  Snow-Bound  "  was  written  in  1866 ;  it  was 
the  first  important  work  produced  by  the 
poet  after  he  had  exchanged  the  helmet  of 
the  aggressive  reformer  for  the  robe  of  the 
poet-priest  of  nature.  And  in  this  counter 
feit  presentment  of  his  childhood's  home 
during  that  memorable  New  England  winter 
we  see  a  subtle  and  almost  indefinable  ideal 
ization  which  might  be  compared  to  the  pur 
ple  mantle  which  rests  over  the  distant  hills 
at  eventide.  Here  we  see  the  power  of  the 
poet  in  describing  home-life,  in  depicting 
character ;  and  here,  too,  we  see  the  moralist 
and  philosopher. 

Whittier  was  first  of  all  a  teacher ;  to  him 
duty  was  august,  her  commands  imperative. 
This  did  not  please  the  dilettanti.  It  has 

20 


always  offended  those  who  fail  to  see  the 
highest  and  divinest  mission  in  art.  The 
teacher,  the  philosopher,  the  moralist — these 
must  be  sneered  down.  They  are  disquiet 
ing  ;  they  compel  us  to  think ;  they  startle 
our  conscience ;  they,  compel  us  to  boldly 
take  sides  in  the  great  battle  of  progress 
which  is  being  waged,  or  win  the  contempt 
of  our  better  selves.  It  is  not  pleasant  to 
break  with  conventionalism,  it  is  also  peril 
ous  to  do  so ;  let  us  remain  as  we  are ;  let 
us  parley  with  wrong  if  we  cannot  ignore  it, 
but  do  not  compel  us  to  join  the  maligned 
and  slandered  minority.  Such  is  the  voice 
of  conventionalism.  But  the  true  prophet 
cannot  heed  the  smooth  tongue  of  the 
charmer.  He  has  a  mission;  God's  hand 
has  touched  his  eyes ;  he  sees  the  enormity 
of  the  injustice  on  every  hand  ;  he  beholds 
the  splendid  possibilities  which  lie  beyond 
humanity's  conquest  of  animality  or  selfism. 
He  cannot  remain  silent ;  he  cannot  proph- 


21 


esy  pleasant  things.     He  is  an  optimist,  and 

therefore  he  refuses  to  allow  the  hideous 

wrongs  to  fester  when  health  and  happiness 

lie  within  the  grasp  of  humanity  the  moment 

shortsighted    selfishness    is  exchanged    for 

wisdom.     Whittier  was    always  a   teacher, 

I  always  a  moralist.     If  in  the  later  years  he 

I  came  to  some  extent  under  the  spell  of  con- 

I   ventionalism  and  ceased  to  be  the  aggressive 

/    reformer  he  had  been  in  early  manhood,  he 

/     never  ceased  to  be  a  teacher. 

Here  is  one  of  those  rare  glimpses  (em 
balmed/  in  descriptive  verse  which  reveal  the 
artist  power  in  the  poet  and  which  constitute 
one  of  the  chief  charms  of  many  of  Whit- 
tier's  pictures  of  life  in  New  England.  As 
the  reader  will  quickly  recognize,  it  is  taken 
from  "  Snow-Bound  "  : 


As  night  drew  on  and,  from  the  crest 
Of  wooded  knolls  that  ridged  the  west, 
The  sun,  a  snow-blown  traveller,  sank 
From  sight  beneath  the  smothering  bank. 


We  piled,  with  care,  our  nightly  stack 
Of  wood  against  the  chimney  back, — 
The  oaken  log,  green,  huge  and  thick, 
And  on  its  top  the  stout  back-stick  ; 
The  knotty  forestick  laid  apart, 
And  filled  between  with  curious  art 
The  ragged  brush  ;  then,  hovering  near, 
We  watched  the  first  red  blaze  appear, 
Heard  the  sharp  crackle,  caught  the  gleam 
On  whitewashed  wall  and  sagging  beam, 
Until  the  old,  rude-furnished  room 
Burst,  flower-like,  into  rosy  bloom. 
*  *  *  *  * 

Shut  in  from  all  the  world  without, 
We  sat  the  clean- winged  hearth  about, 
Content  to  let  the  north-wind  roar 
In  baffled  rage  at  pane  and  door, 
While  the  red  logs  before  us  beat 
The  frost-line  back  with  tropic  heat ; 
And  ever,  when  a  louder  blast 
Shook  beam  and  rafter  as  it  passed, 
The  merrier  up  its  roaring  draught 
The  great  throat  of  the  chimney  laughed, 
The  house-dog  on  his  paws  outspread 
Laid  to  the  fire  his  drowsy  head. 

Next  we  find  the  reminiscent  poet  becom 
ing  the  moralizer,  as  was  his  wont,  and  the 
great  problem  of  the  future,  ever  present 


23 


when  he  gave  himself  up  to  serious  musing, 
challenges  his  attention,  as  it  does  more  than 
once  in  subsequent  lines  of  the  same  poem : 

What  matter  how  the  night  behaved  ? 
What  matter  how  the  north-wind  raved  ? 
Blow  high,  blow  low,  not  all  its  snow 
Could  quench  our  hearth-fire's  ruddy  glow. 
O  Time  and  Change ! — with  hair  as  gray 
As  was  my  sire's  that  winter  day, 
How  strange  it  seems,  with  so  much  gone 
Of  life  and  love,  to  still  live  on  ! 
Ah,  brother!  only  I  and  thou 
Are  left  of  all  that  circle  now, — 
The  dear  home  faces  whereupon 
That  fitful  firelight  paled  and  shone. 
Henceforward,  listen  as  we  will, 
The  voices  of  that  hearth  are  still; 
Look  where  we  may,  the  wide  world  o'er, 
Those  lighted  faces  smile  no  more. 
***** 

Yet  Love  will  dream,  and  Faith  will  trust, 
(Since  He  who  knows  our  need  is  just), 
That  somehow,  somewhere,  meet  we  must. 
Alas  for  him  who  never  sees 
The  stars  shine  through  his  cypress  trees ! 
Who,  hopeless,  lays  his  dead  away, 
Nor  looks  to  see  the  breaking  day 
Across  the  mournful  marbles  play! 


24 


Who  hath  not  learned,  in  hours  of  faith, 
The  truth  to  flesh  and  sense  unknown, 

That  Life  is  ever  lord  of  Death, 
And  Love  can  never  lose  its  own ! 

We  come  very  near  to  the  heart  of  that 
memorable  little  circle,  as  we  read  these  lines 
in  which  some  members  of  the  group  are 

.    VyU«y.*~.     y.J^IW*^;'*-      5?V 

described  in  Whittier's  frank,  graphic  and 
simple  manner  : 

We  sped  the  time  with  stories  old, 
Wrought  puzzles  out,  and  riddles  told. 


Our  mother,  while  she  turned  her  wheel 
Or  run  the  new-knit  stocking-heel, 
Told  how  the  Indian  hordes  came  down 
At  midnight  on  Cochecho  town, 
And  how  her  own  great-uncle  bore 
His  cruel  scalp- mark  to  fourscore. 
Recalling,  in  her  fitting  phrase, 
So  rich  and  picturesque  and  free 
(The  common  unrhymed  poetry 
Of  simple  life  and  country  ways), 
The  story  of  her  early  days, — 
She  made  us  welcome  to  her  home; 
Old  hearths  grew  wide  to  give  us  room; 


25 


We  stole  with  her  a  frightened  look 
At  the  gray  wizard's  conjuring-book, 
The  fame  whereof  went  far  and  wide 
Through  all  the  simple  country  side; 
We  heard  the  hawks  at  twilight  play, 
The  boat-horn  on  Piscataqua, 
The  loon's  weird  laughter  faraway. 


Our  uncle,  innocent  of  books, 

• 
Was  rich  in  lore  of  fields  and  brooks, 

The  ancient  teachers  never  dumb 

Of  [Nature's  unhoused  lyceum. 

In  moons  and  tides  and  weather  wise, 

He  read  the  clouds  as  prophecies, 

And  foul  or  fair  could  well  divine, 

By  many  an  occult  hint  and  sign, 

Holding  the  cunning-warded  keys 

To  all  the  woodcraft  mysteries  ; 

Himself  to  Nature's  heart  so  near 

That  all  her  voices  in  his  ear 

Of  beast  or  bird  had  meanings  clear, 

Like  Apollonius  of  old, 

Who  knew  the  tales  the  sparrows  told, 

Or  Hermes,  who  interpreted 

What  the  sage  cranes  of  Nilus  said  ; 

A  simple,  guileless,  childlike  man, 

Content  to  live  where  life  began. 


:;£#$ 


Next,  the  dear  aunt,  whose  smile  of  cheer 
And  voice  in  dreams  I  see  and  hear, — 
The  sweetest  woman  ever  Fate 
Perverse  denied  a  household  mate, 
Who,  lonely,  homeless,  not  the  less 
Found  peace  in  love's  unselfishness, 
And  welcome  wheresoever  she  went, 
A  calm  and  gracious  element, 
Whose  presence  seemed  the  sweet  income 
And  womanly  atmosphere  of  home, — 
Called  up  her  girlhood  memories, 
The  huskings  and  the  apple-bees, 
The  sleigh  rides  and  the  summer  sails, 
Weaving  through  all  the  poor  details 
And  homespun  warp  of  circumstance 
A  golden  woof-thread  of  romance. 


Through  years  of  toil  and  soil  and  care, 
From  glossy  tress  to  thin  gray  hair, 
All  unprofaned  she  held  apart 
The  virgin  fancies  of  the  heart. 


There,  too,  our  elder  sister  plied 
Her  evening  task  the  stand  beside  ; 
A  full,  rich  nature,  free  to  trust, 
Truthful  and  almost  sternly  just, 
Impulsive,  earnest,  prompt  to  act, 
And  make  her  generous  thought  a  fact, 


27 


Keeping  with  many  a  light  disguise 
The  secret  of  self-sacrifice. 
O  heart  sore-tried  !  thou  hast  the  best 
That  heaven  itself  could  give  thee, — rest. 


As  one  who  held  herself  a  part 
Of  all  she  saw,  and  let  her  heart 

Against  the  household  bosom  lean, 
Upon  the  motley-braided  mat 
Our  youngest  and  our  dearest  sat, 
Lifting  her  large,  sweet,  asking  eyes, 

Now  bathed  within  the  fadeless  green 
And  holy  peace  of  Paradise. 


With  me,one  little  year  ago  : — 
The  chill  weight  of  the  winter  snow 

For  months  upon  her  grave  has  lain  ; 
And  now,  when  summer  south-winds  blow 

And  briar  and  harebell  bloom  again, 
I  tread  the  pleasant  paths  we  trod, 
I  see  the  violet-sprinkled  sod 
Whereon  she  leaned,  too  frail  and  weak 
The  hillside  flowers  she  loved  to  seek, 
Yet  following  me  where'er  I  went 
With  dark  eyes  full  of  love's  content. 


I  cannot  feel  that  thou  art  far, 
Since  near  at  need  the  angels  are  ; 
And  when  the  sunset  gates  unbar, 

Shall  I  not  see  thee  waiting  stand, 
And,  white  against  the  evening  star, 

The  welcome  of  thy  beckoning  hand  ? 

An  incident  in  the  life  of  the  aunt  re 
ferred  to  above  was  frequently  related  by 
Whittier  when  talking  over  psychical  and 
spiritual  matters  with  friends  greatly  inter 
ested  in  such  subjects.  The  main  points  in 
this  story,  which  is  interesting  alike  to  stu 
dents  of  psychical  phenomena  and  to  lovers 
of  romance,  are  as  follows  : 

The  poet's  aunt  was  betrothed  to  a  young 
man  who  was  absent  in  the  state  of  New 
York.  One  winter  evening  the  Quaker 
maiden  had  lingered  over  the  great  wood 
fire  in  the  spacious  kitchen  until  the  others 
had  retired.  At  length  she  rose  and,  turn 
ing  to  the  window,  beheld  without  in  the 
clear  moonlight  which  fell  on  a  landscape 
wrapped  in  snow  her  lover  approaching  on 


horseback.  She  hastened  to  the  door, 
noticing  as  she  passed  the  window  that  he 
had  reined  in  his  horse  as  if  to  leap  from 
the  saddle.  On  opening  the  door,  however, 
no  one  was  visible.  Then  a  great  fear  fell 
upon  her,  which  grew  into  a  nameless 
terror ;  she  called  her  sister,  and  related  the 
strange  vision,  and  expressed  her  forebod 
ings.  In  vain  did  the  sympathetic  sister  try 
to  reason  away  her  apprehensions,  suggest 
ing  that  she  had  been  dreaming ;  the  maiden 
only  shook  her  head,  affirming  that  she  had 
never  been  more  thoroughly  awake.  Some 
days  later  a  letter  came  to  her  written  by  a 
stranger  telling  of  the  death  of  her  lover  at 
the  very  time  when  she  had  beheld  his 
apparition. 

To  his  mother,  lovingly  described  in 
"  Snow-Bound,"  Whittier  owed  more  than  to 
any  other  person  for  his  success  as  a  poet. 
While  the  father,  a  plain,  prosaic  and 
matter-of-fact  man,  frowned  upon  his  verse- 
so 


making  and  discouraged  him,  the  mother 
lent  him  sympathy  and  encouragement.  She 
also  stored  his  mind  with  legends  and  stories 
which  later  he  immortalized  in  his  simple 
and  heart-reaching  lays.  This  mother  was 
a  very  superior  woman,  and  the  moulding 
power  which  she  exerted  over  her  son  cannot 
be  overestimated.  Her  influence,  and  the 
poetry  of  Burns,  were  far  more  to  the 
poet  than  the  benefits  he  received  from  the 
district  school,  or  the  academy  at  which  he 
spent  a  short  time.  Burns  was  a  real  edu 
cator  to  Whittier ;  the  Scottish  bard  fulfilled 
the  function  of  a  true  teacher  in  calling  out 
or  developing  the  latent  power  in  the  poet's 
mind,  and  teaching  him  how  to  appreciate 
the  beauty  in  the  commonplace  things  of 
life.  He  was  fourteen  years  old  when  a 
copy  of  the  Scotch  poet's  works  fell  into  his 
hands.  In  his  autobiographical  notes  Whit- 
tier  thus  refers  to  his  introduction  to 
Burns : 

31 


"  When  I  was  fourteen  years  old,  my 
first  schoolmaster,  Joshua  Coffin,  the  able, 
eccentric  historian  of  Newbury,  brought 
with  him  to  our  house  a  volume  of  Burns' 
poems,  from  which  he  read,  greatly  to  my 
delight.  I  begged  him  to  leave  the  book 
with  me,  and  set  myself  at  once  to  the  task 
of  mastering  the  glossary  of  the  Scottish 
dialect  at  its  close.  This  was  about  the 
first  poetry  I  ever  read — with  the  exception 
of  that  of  the  Bible,  of  which  I  had  been  a 
close  student — and  it  had  a  lasting  influence 
upon  me.  I  began  to  make  rhymes  myself, 
and  to  imagine  stories  and  adventures.  In 
fact,  I  lived  a  sort  of  dual  life,  and  in  a 
world  of  fancy  as  well  as  in  the  world  of  plain 
matter  of  fact  about  me." 

Eobert  Collyer,  in  relating  a  conversation 
which  he  had  with  the  poet,  quotes  Whittier 
as  follows : 

"  Burns  is  to  me  the  noblest  poet  of  our 


race.  He  was  the  first  poet  I  read,  and 
he  will  be  the  last.  ...  I  read  Burns 
every  moment  I  had  to  spare.  And  this  was 
one  great  result  to  me  of  my  communion 
with  him :  I  found  that  the  things  out  of 
which  poems  came  were  not,  as  I  had  always 
imagined,  somewhere  away  off  in  a  world 
and  life  lying  outside  the  edge  of  our  own 
New  England  sky — they  were  right  here 
about  my  feet  and  among  the  people  I  knew. 
The  common  things  of  our  common  life  I 
found  were  full  of  poetry." 

It  is  the  true  teacher  who  so  instructs  the 
childish  mind  that  it  learns  to  apprehend  the 
beauties  and  truths  which  lie  around  it,  who 
stimulates  the  imagination  and  awakens  the 
noble  sentiments  of  the  soul,  who  succeeds  in 
calling  into  independent  action  the  reasoning 
faculties,  and  centres  the  youthful  thought 
upon  the  vital  problems  of  life  as  they  affect 
the  peace,  happiness  and  elevation  of  man. 


Whittier  inherited  a  deeply  poetic  nature ; 
his  imagination  was  limited,  but  within  its 
bounds  it  was  compelling  in  its  power.  He 
also  inherited  a  deeply  spiritual  nature.  On 
one  occasion,  when  in  conversation  with  a 
friend,  he  described  a  sense  of  awe  and 
almost  oppressive  solemnity  which  suddenly 
came  over  him  one  evening  as  he  was  driving 
home  the  cows — he  was  only  seven  years  of 
age — when  the  thought,  "  Why  am  I  dif 
ferent  from  those  cows,  what  have  I  got  to 
do  in  life,  what  is  life  ?  "  swept  in  upon  his 
startled  mind.* 

"  He  never  lost  the  impression  of  that 
hour,"  observed  his  friend.  "It  affected 
his  whole  life." 

He  was  a  born  dreamer.  In  reply  to  a 
little  girl  who  wrote  him  of  his  childhood, 
he  said :  "  I  think  at  the  age  of  which  thy 
note  inquires,  I  found  about  equal  satisfac 
tion  in  an  old  rural  home  with  the  shifting 

*  "  Whittier  with  the  Children."    By  Margaret  Sidney. 
34 


panorama  of  seasons,  in  reading  the  few 
books  within  my  reach,  and  in  dreaming  of 
something  wonderful  and  grand  in  the 
future."  In  reminiscent  moods  the  poet 
often  related  how,  when  a  boy,  his  imagina 
tion  carried  him  far  away  from  the  work  in 
hand  and,  lost  in  dreams,  he  would  lean  upon 
his  hoe  or  spade  until  his  father,  "  a  prompt, 
decisive  man,'v  would  call  out,  "That's 
enough  for  a  stand,  John." 

The  work  on  the  farm  was  ill  suited  to 
one  so  delicate  as  Whittier  and,  when  seven 
teen  years  of  age,  he  sustained  from  over- 
exertion  injuries  from  which  he  never  re 
covered.  Yet  this  apparent  calamity  was 
not  an  unmixed  evil,  as  it  helped  to  gain  for 
him  his  father's  consent  to  his  going  to  the 
Haverhill  Academy.  Heretofore,  the  only 
regular  schooling  the  poet  had  enjoyed  had 
been  received  in  the  district  schools,  which 
were  very  indifferent  in  character.  He  had 
written  many  verses  which  his  sister  Mary 


had  highly  complimented.  One  day  this 
sister,  who  had  always  occupied  a  very 
large  place  in  the  poet's  heart,  sent  one 
of  his  poems  to  Garrison  for  the  Newbury 
Free  Press.  The  poet  knew  nothing  of 
the  submitting  of  the  lines,  and  the  editor 
was  ignorant  of  the  authorship.  However, 
on  reading  them  Mr.  Garrison  promptly  pub 
lished  the  poem.  Whittier  was  spellbound 
when  he  found  his  stanzas  in  print.  In  refer 
ring  to  this  experience  Mr.  Pickard  observes : 

"  His  heart  stood  still  a  moment.  Such 
delight  as  his  comes  only  once  in  the  life 
time  of  any  aspirant  to  literary  fame.  His 
father  at  last  called  to  him  to  put  up  the 
paper  and  continue  his  work,  but  he  could 
not  resist  the  temptation  to  take  the  paper 
again  and  again  from  his  pocket  to  stare  at 
his  lines  in  print.  He  has  said  he  was  sure 
he  did  not  read  a  word  of  the  poem  all  the 
time  he  looked  at  it." 


36 


Garrison  found  out  by  inquiry  who  the 
youthful  poet  was,  and  forthwith  drove  out 
to  the  Whittier  homestead  to  meet  the  young 
author.  On  the  editor  inquiring  of  the 
father  for  his  son  John,  the  worthy  Quaker 
became  much  agitated,  fearing  that  his  boy 
had  in  some  way  got  into  trouble  or  dis 
grace  ;  when,  however,  the  facts  were  made 
known,  the  old  gentleman  was  much  relieved, 
but  he  frowned  upon  Garrison's  suggestion 
that  the  boy  be  encouraged  in  his  literary 
aspirations.  "  Poetry  will  not  bring  him 
bread,"  exclaimed  the  old  man — a  fact 
which  Garrison  could  not  then  gainsay. 

The  visit,  however,  fanned  anew  the  am 
bition  of  the  dreamer  boy.  He  importuned 
his  father  to  let  him  go  to  the  academy 
about  to  be  opened  in  Haverhill.  At  length 
it  was  agreed  that  if  Whittier  could  earn 
sufficient  money  by  working  nights  to  pay 
his  way  he  might  go.  The  youth  made 
shoes  during  the  winter  evenings  and  thus 

37 


earned  enough  for  his  first  six  months  at  the 
academy.  Subsequently  he  taught  school 
for  a  short  time  and  assisted  in  posting 
books,  and  in  this  manner  earned  enough 
for  his  second  term. 

Thus,  with  the  slight  profit  derived  from 
the  district  school  and  two  terms  at  the 
academy,  Whittier  went  forth  to  play  upon 
the  heartstrings  of  his  feUow-men  and  touch 
the  conscience  of  a  nation  in  a  manner 
seldom  equalled  in  this  century.  He  entered 
upon  the  aggressive  warfare  that  marked 
his  early  manhood  without  the  polish  which 
lent  grace  to  the  work  of  several  of  his  con 
temporaries  ;  but  he  also  escaped  the  pa 
ralyzing  influence  of  soulless  convention 
alism,  whose  skeleton  fingers  extend  from 
a  dead  past,  and  too  often  crush  originality 
and  throttle  the  voice  of  conscience  in  aspir 
ing  youths,  while  they  are  pursuing  the 
curriculum  of  our  conservative  educational 
institutions.  If  he  lacked  in  polish,  he 

38 


possessed  what  were  of  far  more  importance 
— a  heart  aflame  with  love  of  justice,  a 
nature  pure  and  simple,  and  a  brain  stored 
with  "knowledge  never  learned  in  books 
and  schools."  His  boyhood  days,  if  un 
eventful,  were  far  from  uninteresting;  and 
the  pictures  he  has  given  us  of  old  New  Eng 
land  life,  no  less  than  the  hopes,  joys  and 
sorrows  which  filled  the  horizon  of  his  boy 
ish  world,  are  dear  to  our  people,  and  will 
continue  to  be  a  source  of  pleasure  and  in 
spiration  for  many  generations  to  come. 

Ah !  thou  little  barefoot  dreamer  boy, 
who  wanderedst  over  the  hills  and  vales  round 
thy  native  home,  revelling  in  the  beauty  and 
fragrance  of  our  wild  flora,  charmed  by  the 
matchless  music  of  the  forest's  feathered 
orchestra,  awed  by  the  sublimity  of  Nature 
in  her  grander  manifestations,  thou  child 
of  pure  and  honest  parents,  had  we  more 
lives  like  thine,  the  curses  of  our  day  and 
generation  would  lose  their  power,  and  in 


the  place  of  feverish  hate,  misery,  poverty, 
drunkenness,  debauchery,  bigotry>  intoler 
ance  and  woe,  we  should  see  peace,  love, 
prosperity,  purity  and  nobility  open  their 
blossoms  on  every  side  ;  earth  would  put  on 
Eden-like  beauty ;  and  humanity,  with  great 
strides,  would  sweep  onward  and  upward  to 
ward  the  sun-bathed  plane  of  perfect  civili 
zation.  And  all  peoples,  even  as  the  voice 
of  one  man,  could  unite  in  these  words  from 
thy  song  of  triumph  : 

The  airs  of  heaven  blow  o'er  me; 
A  glory  shines  before  me 
Of  what  mankind  shall  be, — 
Pure,  generous,  brave,  and  free. 

A  dream  of  man  and  woman 
Diviner  but  still  human, 
Solving  the  riddle  old, 
Shaping  the  Age  of  Gold. 

The  love  of  God  and  neighbor; 
An  equal-handed  labor  ; 
The  richer  life,  where  beauty 
Walks  hand  in  hand  with  duty. 


40 


I  feel  the  earth  move  sunward, 
I  join  the  great  march  onward, 
And  take,  by  faith,  while  living, 
My  freehold  of  thanksgiving. 


41 


A  PROPHET  OF  FREEDOM. 


"  O  Freedom  !  if  to  me  belong 
Nor  mighty  Milton's  gift  divine, 

Nor  Marvell's  wit  and  graceful  song  ; 
Still  with  a  love  as  deep  and  strong 
As  theirs  I  lay,  like  them,  my  best  gifts  on  thy  shrine  ! " 

— Whittier. 

"  Or  should  he  deem  wrong  there  at  the  public  weal, 
Lo  !  the  whole  man  seemed  girt  with  flashing  steel, 
His  glance  a  sword-thrust,  and  his  words  of  fire 
Like  thunder  tones  from  some  old  prophet's  lyre." 

— Hayne. 

"  We  already  see — and  the  future  will  see  it  more  clearly 
— that  no  party  ever  did  a  vaster  work  than  his  party  ;  that 
he,  like  Hampden  and  Milton,  is  a  character  not  produced 

in  common  times." 

— E.  C.  Stedman. 


44 


II.    n  ^topftet  of  fteeliom, 

N  the  history  of  many  an  individual, 
especially  among  those  who  have 
left  their  impress  on  their  age, 
there  comes  a  time  when  the  trend  of  the 
life  seems  to  turn  on  the  most  insignificant 
happening.  This  apparently  destiny-shap 
ing  event  or  decision  does  not,  of  course, 
change  the  character  of  the  individual,  mak 
ing  him  good  or  bad  when  before  he  had 
been  the  opposite,  although  it  may  greatly 
strengthen  and  develop  good  or  bad  char 
acteristics  previously  existing  in  his  nature. 
It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  behind  the 
momentous  though  seemingly  unimportant 
occurrence,  is  the  individual's  personality 
with  its  dower  of  qualities  received  through 
the  complex  and  interblended  influences  of 

45 


heredity,  and  prenatal  and  postnatal  condi 
tions.  There  is  the  brain  with  its  potential 
grasp,  its  imagination,  and  the  marvellous 
alchemic  power  by  which  ideas  are  trans 
muted  into  living  agencies  capable  of  in 
fluencing  other  minds,  and  shaping  the 
destiny  of  nations  and  of  civilizations. 
There  is  the  conscience,  awake,  or  asleep 
but  present, — there  is  the  soul,  awaiting  the 
moving  of  the  waters  by  the  spirit  of  God. 
But  this  trivial  something,  which  is  yet  so 
influential  if  not  so  absolutely  destiny-fixing 
in  character,  acts  as  a  branch  which,  falling 
from  a  tree,  changes  the  course  of  a  river 
near  its  source,  so  that  it  flows  into  the  ocean 
hundreds  of  miles  from  where  it  would  have 
entered  the  sea  had  nothing  deflected  its 
current.  Does  anything  happen  in  our 
world  ?  Have  the  "  ifs  "  of  history  any  real 
place  in  serious  contemplation  ?  Is  man  a 
creature  of  free  will,  or  of  destiny  ?  or  do  both 
these  agencies  act  and  react  upon  each  other  ? 

46 


I  incline  to  think  the  last  view  correct.  But 
the  fact  that  the  most  momentous  events  in 
the  history  of  humanity  seem  frequently  to 
have  hung  on  the  most  trivial  occurrences, 
often  the  feeble  will  of  a  fragile  child  (as, 
for  example,  in  the  case  of  the  Maid  of 
Orleans),  affords  a  most  interesting  subject 
for  speculation.  And  so  with  the  lives  of 
many  who  have  powerfully  influenced  the 
brain  and  conscience  of  their  fellow-men ; 
frequently,  it  seems  that  the  current  of  their 
destiny  has  veered  at  the  whim  apparently 
of  trifles. 

In  the  life  of  Whittier  we  find  one  of 
these  momentous  but  seemingly  insignificant 
incidents, — the  sister  secretly  sends  her 
brother's  poem  to  William  Lloyd  Garrison, 
whose  first  impulse  is  to  destroy  without 
reading  it.  The  young  editor,  however,  is 
impelled  to  glance  over  the  creation  and  is 
impressed  with  its  power.  He  publishes  it, 
and  forthwith  seeks  to  ascertain  the  name  of 

47 


the  author ;  after  succeeding,  he  visits  the 
Whittier  homestead  and  urges  the  father  to 
look  favorably  on  the  suggestion  of  his  son 
being  allowed  to  secure  a  better  education. 
This  visit  exerts  a  most  pronounced  effect 
upon  the  youthful  poet.  It  fans  to  flame 
his  ambition,  leading  him  to  make  one  of 
those  all-compelling  resolutions  that  brook 
no  failure.  He  succeeds  in  entering  the 
academy,  and  is  subsequently  launched  upon 
a  literary  career,  editing  three  different 
journals  during  1828  and  1833.* 

For  five  years  after  entering  public  life 
Whittier  practically  refrained  from  casting  in 
his  lot  with  the  despised  band  of  Abolition 
ists,  who  were  then  the  recipients  of  all  the 
epithets  of  abuse  which  unreasoning  preju 
dice  and  easy-going  conventionalism  always 
employ  so  prodigally  when  seeking  to 
clothe  with  ignominy  those  who  insist  on 

*The  American  Manufacturer,  the  Haverhill  Gazette, 
and  The  New  England  Review. 

48 


arousing  the  sleeping  conscience  of  society 
by  demanding  a  higher  regard  for  the  de 
mands  of  justice  and  morality.  The  facts 
involved  seem  to  clearly  indicate  that  it  was 
Garrison's  influence  which  at  last  turned  the 
scales  leading  Whittier,  after  his  five  years 
of  waiting,  to  boldly  embrace  the  cause  of 
Abolition.  Not  that  his  sympathies  had  at 
any  time  been  elsewhere  than  with  the  cause 
of  freedom,  but  he  was  a  Quaker ;  he  loved 
peace  and  his  intuitive  mind  quickly  per 
ceived,  what  many  less  far-seeing  men  failed 
to  appreciate,  that  the  onward  movement  of 
the  Abolition  cause  meant  riots,  mobs  and 
bloodshed, — perhaps,  it  meant  war  and  the 
severance  of  the  Union.  He  hoped  to  see 
the  cause  triumph  peaceably,  even  if  so  it 
should  be  longer  in  the  process  of  settle 
ment.  Then  again  he  had  political  and  lit 
erary  ambitions  which  he  well  knew  would 
be  blasted  if  he  espoused  the  unpopular  cause. 
He  shrank  from  the  contempt  of  his  fellow- 

49 


men,  and  he  dreaded  the  savage  conflict 
which  he  felt  would  follow  an  aggressive 
campaign  for  unconditional  abolition.  He 
cherished  as  long  as  possible  the  hope  that 
justice  would  triumph  over  greed ;  but  the 
time  came  when  he  could  not  answer  Gar 
rison's  arguments  to  his  own  satisfaction,  for 
he  could  not  close  his  eyes  to  the  fact  that 
the  trend  of  politics,  and  the  commercial 
demands  and  requirements  of  the  time,  were 
distinctly  opposed  to  his  own  vision  of 
gradual  emancipation.  In  order  to  win 
electoral  votes  from  the  South,  the  two 
great  parties  throughout  the  North  were 
vying  with  each  other  in  disciplining  those 
members  who  pleaded  for  freedom  and  jus 
tice  to  all  men.  The  cotton  gin  and  the 
increase  of  rice  culture  made  the  dream  of 
gradual  emancipation  thoroughly  visionary ; 
at  least  it  seemed  so  to  Whittier,  who  had 
carefully  studied  the  question  with  an  earnest 
desire  to  be  convinced  that  the  theory  of  grad- 

50 


ual  emancipation  was  probable,  if  the  facts  at 
all  warranted  such  a  conclusion.  His  hope, 
however,  grew  less  and  less  the  more  he 
considered  the  question.  Garrison,  who 
through  his  early  friendship  with  the  poet 
was  able  to  approach  nearer  to  his  con 
science  than  anyone  else,  brought  all  his 
influence  to  bear  upon  the  young  Quaker  to 
convince  him  of  his  duty,  and  to  outweigh 
Whittier's  natural  reluctance  to  engaging  in 
aggressive  warfare,  his  supersensitiveness, 
and  his  ambition  for  political  honors. 

In  1833,  Whittier  crossed  the  Kubicon 
by  publishing  at  his  own  expense  a  carefully 
prepared  argument  on  "  Justice  and  Expe 
diency."  This  done,  he  found  himself 
forced  into  the  heart  of  the  band  who  were 
struggling  for  an  interpretation  of  freedom 
wider  than  the  nation  had  yet  recognized. 
His  poem  inscribed  to  Garrison  *  reveals  his 

*  According  to  Mr.  Pickard,  this  poem  was  published  in 
the  Haverhill  Gazette  in  November,  1831 ;  while  Mr.  Wil- 

51 


strong  attachment  to  the  friend  of  his  youth, 
and  his  admiration  for  the  moral  courage  of 
the  foremost  apostle  of  Abolition,  as  will  be 
seen  from  these  stanzas  : 

Champion  of  those  who  groan  beneath 

Oppression's  iron  hand  : 
In  view  of  penury,  hate,  and  death, 

I  see  thee  fearless  stand, 
Still  bearing  up  thy  lofty  brow, 

In  the  steadfast  strength  of  truth, 
In  manhood  sealing  well  the  vow 

And  promise  of  thy  youth. 


I  love  thee  with  a  brother's  love, 

I  feel  my  pulses  thrill, 
To  mark  thy  spirit  soar  above 

The  cloud  of  human  ill. 
My  heart  hath  leaped  to  answer  thine, 

And  echo  back  thy  words, 

Ham  Sloane  Kennedy,  in  his  "  Life  of  Whittier,"  main 
tains  that  it  was  not  published  until  after  "  Justice  and 
Expediency."  If  Mr.  Pickard  is  correct,  it  indicates  that 
the  strong  attachment  of  the  poet  for  Garrison,  and  his 
admiration  for  the  man  who  was  being  so  generally 
maligned,  led  to  this  outburst  of  feeling,  in  verse  which 
reflected  the  sentiments  of  the  youthful  editor  who  was 
not  yet  ready  to  cast  in  his  lines  with  Garrison. 


52 


As  leaps  the  warrior's  at  the  shine 
And  flash  of  kindred  swords ! 


Have  I  not  known  thee  well,  and  read 

Thy  mighty  purpose  long  ? 
And  watched  the  trials  which  have  made 

Thy  human  spirit  strong  ? 
And  shall  the  slanderer's  demon  breath 

Avail  with  one  like  me, 
To  dim  the  sunshine  of  my  faith 

And  earnest  trust  in  thee  ? 

In  taking  his  stand  Whittier  made  one  of 
those  sublime  sacrifices  which  evince  the  es 
sential  divinity  immanent  in  man.  For  even 
those  who  do  not  sympathize  with  his  de 
cision,  deeming  the  action  to  have  been 
unwise,  unless  they  be  blinded  by  unreason 
ing  prejudice  will  appreciate  the  grandeur 
of  soul  which  led  an  ambitious  young  man 
with  the  most  flattering  political  and  literary 
prospects  before  him  to  turn  his  back  upon 
honor,  success,  and  the  natural  inclinations 
of  his  nature,  and  consent  to  be  a  social 


outcast  for  the  cause  his  conscience  approved. 
No  one,  be  it  remembered,  was  better  ac 
quainted  with  the  nature  of  the  sacrifice 
he  was  making  than  the  poet ;  he  had  care 
fully  surveyed  the  whole  field  from  the 
position  of  one  whose  opportunities  enabled 
him  to  comprehend  the  magnitude  of  the 
sacrifice.  On  this  point,  Mr.  William  Sloane 
Kennedy  observes : 

"  When  Whittier  espoused  the  cause  of 
the  slave  he  had  counted  the  cost,  and  knew 
that  he  was  burying  all  hope  of  political 
preferment  and  literary  gains.  Those  who 
gave  themselves  to  the  work  knew  not  but 
that  it  might  be  for  a  lifetime.  To  be  shunned 
and  spat  upon  by  society,  mobbed  in  public, 
and  injured  in  one's  business, — this  was 
what  it  meant  to  become  an  Abolitionist. 
When  Miss  Martineau  avowed  her  sympathy 
with  them,  society  shut  its  doors  in  her  face. 
When  Longfellow  put  forth  his  little 

54 


pamphlet  of  poems  on  slavery,  weak  and 
harmless  as  they  were,  the  editor  of 
Graham's  Magazine  wrote  him  to  offer 
excuses  for  the  brevity  of  a  guarded  notice 
of  the  poems,  saying  that  the  word  '  slavery ' 
was  never  allowed  to  appear  in  a  Philadelphia 
periodical,  and  that  the  publisher  of  the  mag 
azine  had  objected  to  have  even  the  name  of 
the  book  appear  in  his  pages.  Allusion 
only  can  be  made  to  a  few  of  the  innumera 
ble  persecutions  endured  by  the  friends  of 
the  black  race.  How  Lydia  Maria  Child 
was  deprived  of  the  use  of  the  Athenaeum 
Library,  in  Boston,  because  the  first  use  she 
had  made  of  it  was  to  prepare  her  '  appeal ' ; 
how  Dr.  Follen  was  deprived  of  his  pro 
fessorship  in  Harvard  College  for  his  brave 
espousal  of  Abolitionism;  how  Prudence 
Crandall's  schoolhouse  was  defiled  with  filth, 
and  its  windows  broken ;  how  Arthur 
Tappan's  house  was  sacked  and  his  life 
threatened;  how  Dr.  Reuben  Crandall 

55 


(teacher  of  botany  in  Washington,  D.  C., 
and  brother  of  Prudence  Crandall)  for  having, 
at  his  own  request,  lent  to  a  white  citizen  a 
copy  of  Whittier's  '  Justice  and  Expediency ' 
was  kept  in  a  damp  city  prison  for  eight 
months,  until  the  seeds  of  consumption  were 
sown,  and  his  life  made  a  sacrifice ;  how  Amos 
Dresser  was  flogged  in  the  public  square  of 
Nashville,  and  his  fellow-student  of  Lane 
Seminary,  the  eloquent  Marius  K.  Robinson, 
was  dragged  from  his  bed  at  night,  and 
tarred  and  feathered  by  ruffians, — all  these 
things  are  matters  of  history." 

This  noble  sacrifice  of  the  lower  to  the 
higher  afforded  the  poet  the  keenest  pleasure 
throughout  life,  as  such  soul-victories  al 
ways  afford  high-minded,  sincere  natures ; 
and  he  attributed  his  later  success  largely 
to  this  momentous  decision.  Toward  the 
close  of  his  life  he  said  as  much  to  a  youth 
of  fifteen  years  who  sought  his  counsel, 


56 


adding,  "  Join  thyself  to  some  unpopular  but 
noble  cause,  if  thou  wouldst  succeed."  The 
poet  had  in  mind,  without  doubt,  the  only 
success  which  is  worthy  of  the  name, — suc 
cess  from  which  flows  the  triumph  of  right 
and  the  enlargement  of  human  happiness. 
The  years  1834  and  1835  are  known  as 
the  "  mob  "  years  of  the  anti-slavery  educa 
tional  period.  In  New  York,  disturbances 
were  of  frequent  occurrence  ;  but  the  spirit 
of  lawlessness  on  the  part  of  conventional 
society  which  plumed  itself  on  being  ultra- 
respectable  was  also  present  in  various  other 
centres.  It  was  on  the  twenty-first  of  Oc 
tober,  1835,  that  Garrison  was  mobbed  by 
the  so-called  "  respectables  "  of  Boston.  In 
writing  of  this  outrage,  Miss  Martineau  ob 
serves  that  an  eminent  Boston  lawyer  said  to 
her :  "  Oh  !  there  was  no  mob  ;  I  was  there 
myself,  and  saw  that  they  were  all  gentle 
men, — they  were  all  in  fine  broadcloth. 
They  only  wanted  to  show  him 

57 


that  they  would  not  have  such  a  person  live 
amongst  them." 

It  is  interesting  to  remember  here  that  it 
was  this  mobbing  of  Garrison  that  served  to 
sweep  Wendell  Phillips  into  the  ranks  of  the 
Abolitionists. 

In  1835  the  poet  and  his  friend,  George 
Thompson  (an  Englishman,  afterwards  a 
member  of  Parliament),  were  mobbed  in 
Concord,  New  Hampshire.  The  experience 
was  quite  thrilling.  The  poet,  who  had  ven 
tured  forth  for  a  stroll,  was  set  upon  by  a 
crowd  of  people  who,  by  imbibing  freely  of 
strong  drink,  had  fortified  themselves  for 
the  arduous  task  of  preventing  free  speech. 
At  first,  only  oaths  and  vile  language  were 
hurled  at  the  poet ;  but  mobs  are  nothing  if 
not  intemperate,  and  soon  mud,  gravel  and 
stones  were  showered  upon  the  young  man, 
who  was  beating  a  hasty  retreat — before  he 
could  reach  a  place  of  refuge,  he  had  lost 
his  hat  and  had  received  a  rather  severe 

58 


stone-bruise  on  his  cheek.  The  disorderly 
throng  constantly  grew  in  size  and  became 
more  violent  and  lawless  as  night  came  on. 
Finally  they  gathered  before  the  home  of  the 
host  of  the  two  Abolitionists  and  demanded 
Whittier  and  Thompson,  declaring  that  if 
they  were  not  delivered  up  to  them  they 
would  blow  up  the  place.  The  inmates  of 
the  house,  however,  were  no  cowards,  nor 
did  they  lose  their  presence  of  mind ;  after  a 
hasty  council,  it  was  decided  to  hitch  up  the 
carriage  and,  if  possible,  divert  the  attention 
of  the  rapidly  increasing  crowd,  until  the 
visitors  could  get  beyond  the  danger  line. 
The  plan  succeeded.  The  attention  of  the 
mob  was  cleverly  diverted,  while  the  door  of 
the  carriage  house  was  opened  and  the  horses 
plunged  forward  at  a  gallop,  carrying 
Whittier  and  Thompson  beyond  the  reach 
of  danger. 

Many  years  later  the  poet  chanced  to  be 
in  Portland,  Maine,  where  he  was  accosted 


by  a  gentleman  who  inquired  whether  he 
was  not  the  poet  Whittier  ;  on  receiving  an 
affirmative  answer,  the  gentleman  in  question 
informed  the  poet  that  he  had  been  in  the 
mob  and,  he  continued,  he  believed  a  devil 
possessed  him  that  night,  for  he  had  no  pre 
judice  to  satisfy  or  desire  to  harm  either 
Whittier  or  Thompson,  but  coming  within 
the  influence  of  the  mob  he  was  seized  by  an 
intense  desire  to  kill  them,  and  believed  he 
should  have  done  so  had  they  not  escaped. 
He  stated  that  the  mob  was  like  a  company 
of  demons,  and  he  knew  one  man  who 
had  mixed  to  dip  the  fugitives  in  a  dye, 
which  its  maker  assured  him  would  have 
proved  well-nigh  indelible.  "  I  have  never 
been  able,"  concluded  this  man,  "  to  account 
in  a  manner  satisfactory  to  myself  for  the 
strange  mental  condition  I  was  in  that 
night."  This  confession  is  interesting  to 
students  of  psychology ;  it  illustrates  the 
strong  psychological  influence  which  some 

60 


minds  come  under  when  exposed  to  the 
thought  waves  generated  by  a  gathering  in 
which  intense  passion  has  drowned  reason, 
and  men  and  women  have  ceased  to  be  the 
creatures  of  aught  else  than  prejudice  and 
brutal  desire. 

The  meetings  of  the  Abolitionists  were 
frequently  broken  up  by  turbulent  bands, 
even  when  no  violence  was  shown,  and  many 
are  the  ludicrous  incidents  which  occurred  at 
these  gatherings.  On  one  occasion,  a  lady 
who  was  accustomed  to  give  the  friends  of 
freedom  no  end  of  trouble  by  her  con 
tinual  interruptions  and  who,  being  pos 
sessed  of  some  wit,  usually  created  great 
amusement  among  the  unsympathetic  on 
lookers  who  frequented  these  assemblies, 
became  so  troublesome  that  in  order  to  con 
tinue  the  meeting  it  was  necessary  to  remove 
the  loquacious  disturber.  Finally,  Wendell 
Phillips  and  two  other  gentlemen  gently 
raised  her  chair  and  proceeded  to  carry  her 

61 


from  the  hall ;  she  was  by  no  means  discon 
certed  but,  in  fact,  seemed  to  enjoy  the 
situation.  The  trio  had  not  proceeded  far, 
however,  when  she  broke  the  silence  by  ex 
claiming  :  "  I  am  better  off  than  my  Master 
was,  for  He  had  but  one  ass  to  ride  on,  while 
I  have  three  to  carry  me."  Whittier  used 
to  relate  another  amusing  incident  that  oc 
curred  about  this  time  :  One  of  the  public 
meetings  became  very  stormy,  more  on  ac 
count  of  the  opposing  views  entertained  by 
the  friends  of  freedom  than  from  the  dis 
orderly  class  who  usually  gave  trouble.  Now, 
there  were  seated  on  the  platform  William 
Lloyd  Garrison,  whose  head  was  very  bald ; 
William  A.  Burleigh,  whose  hair  fell  in  a 
great  mane  on  his  shoulders  ;  and  a  negro. 
Suddenly,  during  a  momentary  lull,  some  one 
in  the  rear  of  the  hall  shouted :  "  Mr. 
Speaker,  Mr.  Speaker,  I  have  only  a  word  to 
say.  If  that  negro  will  shave  Burleigh  and 
make  a  whig  for  Garrison  all  difference  will 

62 


be  settled."  The  house  instantly  broke 
forth  in  roars  of  laughter  which  lasted  for 
some  time  and  seemed  to  put  every  one  in  a 
good  humor,  as  from  that  moment  the  meet 
ing  passed  off  smoothly,  a  rare  good  humor 
seeming  to  have  taken  the  place  of  the 
almost  bitter  spirit  which  had  prevailed  a 
few  moments  before. 

In  1838  the  beautiful  temple  of  freedom 
in  Philadelphia  dedicated  as  Pennsylvania 
Hall  was  burned  by  a  mob.  This  act  of  law 
lessness  created  a  deep  impression  on  many 
thoughtful  minds  throughout  the  North.  In 
his  editorial  in  the  issue  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Tribune  which  appeared  after  the  burning, 
Whittier  speaks  in  these  vivid,  vital  and  pro 
phetic  sentences  of  the  outrage  and  the  in 
fluence  which  it  would  exert  upon  the  friends 
of  freedom  :  "  Not  in  vain,  we  trust,  has  the 
persecution  fallen  upon  us.  Fresher  and 
purer  for  the  fiery  baptism,  the  cause  lives  in 
our  hearts.  *  *  *  Woe  unto  us  if  we 


63 


falter  through  the  fear  of  man  !  *  *  * 
Citizens  of  Pennsylvania  !  your  rights  as  well 
as  ours  have  been  violated  in  this  dreadful 
outrage.  *  In  the  heart  of  your 

free  city,  within  view  of  the  Hall  of  Inde 
pendence,  whose  spire  and  roof  reddened  in 
the  flame  of  the  sacrifice,  the  deed  has  been 
done, — and  the  shout  which  greeted  the  fall 
ing  ruin  was  the  shout  of  Slavery  over  the 
grave  of  Liberty.  *  *  Are  we  pointed 

to  the  smoking  ruins  of  that  beautiful 
Temple  of  Freedom,  which  we  fondly  hoped 
would  have  long  echoed  the  noble  and  free 
sentiments  of  a  Franklin,  a  Rush,  a  Benezet, 
a  Jay;  and  as  we  look  sadly  on  its  early 
downfall,  are  we  bidden  to  learn  hence  the 
fate  of  our  own  dwellings  if  we  persevere  ? 
Think  not  the  intimidation  will  drive  us  from 
our  post.  *  *  *  We  feel  that  God  has 
called  us  to  this  work,  and  if  it  be  His  pur 
pose  that  we  should  finish  what  we  have  be 
gun,  He  can  preserve  us,  though  it  be  as  in 

64 


the  lion's  den,  or  the  seven-fold  heated  fur 


nace." 


Whittier's  poems  during  this  period  were 
thrown  off  at  white  heat.  In  later  life  he 
thus  characterized  them :  "  Of  their  defects 
from  an  artistic  point  of  view  it  is  not  neces 
sary  to  speak.  They  were  the  earnest  and 
often  vehement  expression  of  the  writer's 
thought  and  feeling  at  critical  periods  in  the 
great  conflict  between  Freedom  and  Slavery. 
They  were  written  with  no  expectation  that 
they  would  survive  the  occasions  which  called 
them  forth ;  they  were  protests,  alarm  sig 
nals,  trumpet  calls  to  action,  words  wrung 
from  the  writer's  heart,  forged  at  white  heat, 
and  of  course  lacking  the  finish  and  careful 
word-selection  which  reflection  and  patient 
brooding  over  them  might  have  given."  They 
were  indeed  trumpet  calls,  and  did  more  to 
awaken  the  sleeping  conscience  of  the  nation 
than  even  our  historians  appreciate.  James 
Russell  Lowell  was  profoundly  impressed,  and 

5  65 


generously  expressed  his  appreciation  of 
Whittier  in  these  striking  lines  :  "  Whittier 
has  always  been  found  faithful  to  the  Muses' 
holy  trust.  He  has  not  put  his  talent  out  at 
profitable  interest,  by  catering  to  the  insolent 
and  Pharisaical  self-esteem  of  the  times ;  nor 
has  he  hidden  it  in  the  damask  napkin  of  his 
torical  commonplaces,  or  a  philanthropy  too 
universal  to  concern  itself  with  particular 
wrongs,  the  practical  redressing  of  which  is 
all  that  renders  philanthropy  of  value.  Most 
poets  are  content  to  follow  the  spirit  of  their 
age,  as  pigeons  follow  a  leaky  grain-cart, 
picking  a  kernel  here  and  there  out  of  the 
dry  dust  of  the  past.  Not  so  with  Whittier. 
From  the  heart  of  the  onset  upon  the  serried 
mercenaries  of  every  tyranny,  the  chords  of 
his  iron-strung  lyre  clang  with  a  martial  and 
triumphant  cheer ;  and  where  Freedom's  Spar 
tan  few  maintain  their  inviolate  mountain  pass 
against  the  assaults  of  Slavery,  his  voice  may 
be  heard,  clear  and  fearless,  as  if  the  victory 


were  already  won.  It  is  with  the  highest 
satisfaction  I  send  you  the  enclosed  poem, 
every  way  worthy  of  our  truly  New  England 
poet."  And  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson, 
in  a  tribute  to  Whittier  written  some  years 
since,  thus  expresses  the  wonderful  influence 
exerted  by  the  poet  over  his  youthful  imagina 
tion  : 

At  dawn  of  manhood  came  a  voice  to  me 
That  said  to  the  startled  conscience,  "  Sleep  no  more  !" 


If  any  good  to  me  or  from  me  came, 
Through  life,  and  if  no  influence  less  divine 

Has  quite  usurped  the  place  of  duty's  flame  ; 
If  aught  rose  worthy  in  this  heart  of  mine, 

Aught  that,  viewed  backward,  wears  no  shade  of  shame  ; 
Bless  thee,  old  friend !  for  that  high  call  was  thine. 

This  brings  us  to  notice  some  of  Whittier's 
poems  relating  to  the  anti-slavery  struggle. 
It.  cannot  be  expected  that  these  stanzas  will 
thrill  or  influence  us'  as  they  did  the  Northern 
mind  during  the  exciting  days  when  they 

67 


were  written,  any  more  than  the  picture  of 
an  army  rushing  to  glory  and  savage  death 
can  awaken  the  horror  and  sense  of  anguish 
that  the  actual  battle  would  inspire.  But 
on  the  other  hand  we  at  the  present  time, 
and  especially  those  of  us  who  have  grown 
up  since  the  terrible  civil  strife,  can  view 
these  creations  with  eyes  less  blinded  by 
partiality  or  prejudice  than  would  have  been 
possible  if  we  had  attempted  to  estimate  this 
phase  of  Whittier's  life  at  an  earlier  day. 
We  who  have  grown  to  manhood  and  woman 
hood  since  the  close  of  the  civil  war  shall  be 
able  to  appreciate  the  high  motives,  the  sin 
cerity  and  superb  power  of  the  poet,  even 
though  the  sympathies  of  some  of  us  may 
run  counter  to  his  thought.  We  are  further 
more  able  to  accord  him  a  degree  of  justice 
which  it  would  not  have  been  reasonable, 
perhaps,  for  us  to  expect  those  of  an  older 
generation  to  have  shown ;  for  we  appreciate 
the  fact  that  he  necessarily  viewed  the  ques- 


tion  of  slavery  from  a  point  of  view  which 
prevented  his  gaining  more  than  a  partial 
grasp  of  the  situation,  and  which  prevented 
his  knowing  of  the  brighter  aspects  of  planta 
tion  life,  no  less  than  of  the  difficulties  and 
perplexities  which  the  Southerners  had  to 
grapple  with — about  which,  indeed,  none  of 
the  Abolitionists  knew  much. 

Having  thus  reached  a  point  sufficiently 
removed  from  the  conflict  to  enable  us  to 
justly  judge  and  impartially  view  the  work 
of  the  poet,  whether  we  agree  with  him  or 
dissent  from  his  view,  we  pass  to  the  notice  of 
the  poems  more  as  the  outgushing  of  a  pro 
phetic  soul  that  conscientiously  sought  to 
awaken  the  sleeping  conscience  of  the  peo 
ple  ;  and  in  this  judicial  attitude  we  shall 
notice  his  creations  apart  from  their  partizan 
bearing,  or  even  their  specific  relation  to  the 
slavery  question,  as  by  maintaining  this  men 
tal  posture  we  can  consider  Whittier's  char 
acter  as  a  typical  reformer  more  fairly  than 


would  be  possible  if  our  views  were  colored 
by  passion  or  prejudice. 

In  the  following  lines  the  poet-seer  strives, 
through  an  appeal  to  reason,  patriotism, 
manhood,  and  man's  innate  sense  of  justice, 
to  avert  the  gloom  and  horror  of  war,  and 
the  degradation  which  he  felt  a  nation  must 
sink  into  which  continued  to  be  guilty  of 
slavery  after  the  conscience  had  been  called 
to  judgment : 

Up,  then,  in  Freedom's  manly  part, 

From  graybeard  eld  to  fiery  youth, 
And  on  the  nation's  naked  heart 

Scatter  the  living  coals  of  truth  ! 
Up, — while  ye  slumber,  deeper  yet 

The  shadow  of  our  shame  is  growing  ! 
Up, — while  ye  pause,  our  sun  may  set 

In  blood,  around  our  altars  flowing  ! 

Oh  !  rouse  ye,  ere  the  storm  comes  forth, — 

The  gathered  wrath  of  God  and  man, — 
Like  that  which  wasted  Egypt's  earth, 

When  hail  and  fire  above  it  ran. 
Hear  ye  no  warnings  in  the  air  ? 

Feel  ye  no  earthquake  underneath  ? 
Up, — up  !    Why  will  ye  slumber  where 

The  sleeper  only  wakes  in  death  ? 

70 


Up  now  for  freedom  ! — not  in  strife 

Like  that  your  sterner  fathers  saw, — 
The  awful  waste  of  human  life, — 

The  glory  and  the  guilt  of  war  : 
But  break  the  chain, — the  yoke  remove, 

And  smite  to  earth  Oppression's  rod, 
With  those  mild  arms  of  Truth  and  Love, 

Made  mighty  through  the  living  God  ! 

I  always  think  of  Jesus  in  the  Temple 
driving  out  the  money  changers,  overturning 
the  tables  and  crying  in  austere  tones,  "It  is 
written  my  house  shall  be  called  a  house  of 
prayer,  but  ye  have  made  it  a  den  of  thieves," 
when  I  read  the  following  verses,  which  are 
taken  from  a  poem  entitled  "  Clerical  Op 
pressors,"  called  forth  by  the  celebrated  pro- 
slavery  meeting  in  Charleston,  S.  C.,  Sept.  4, 
1835.  To  quote  from  the  Courier  of  that 
city,  "  The  clergy  of  all  denominations  at 
tended  in  a  body,  lending  their  sanction  to 
the  proceedings,  and  adding  by  their  pres 
ence  to  the  impressive  character  of  the 
scene."  When  Whittier  read  these  lines  a 


71 


feeling  of  amazement  gave  place  to  one  of 
horror  and  indignation,  as  from  his  lips 
leaped  forth  such  words  as  the  following : 

Just  God  ! — and  these  are  they 
Who  minister  at  thine  altar,  God  of  Right  ! 

Men  who  their  hands  with  prayer  and  blessing  lay 
On  Israel's  Ark  of  light ! 

What  !  servants  of  thy  own 

Merciful  Son,  who  came  to  seek  and  save 
The  homeless  and  the  outcast, — fettering  down 

The  tasked  and  plundered  slave  ! 

Paid  hypocrites,  who  turn 

Judgment  aside,  and  rob  the  Holy  Book 
Of  those  high  words  of  truth  which  search  and  burn 

In  warning  and  rebuke  ; 

Feed  fat,  ye  locusts,  feed! 

And  in  your  tasselled  pulpits,  thank  the  Lord 
That,  from  the  toiling  bondman's  utter  need, 

Ye  pile  your  own  full  board. 

How  long,  O  Lord  !  how  long 
Shall  such  a  priesthood  barter  truth  away, 

And  in  thy  name,  for  robbery  and  wrong 
At  thy  own  altars  pray  ? 


72 


Woe,  then,  to  all  who  grind 

Their  brethren  of  a  common  Father  down  ! 
To  all  who  plunder  from  the  immortal  mind 

Its  bright  and  glorious  crown! 

O,  speed  the  moment  on 

When  Wrong  shall  cease,  and  Liberty  and  Love 
And  Truth  and  Right  throughout  the  earth  be  known 

As  in  their  home  above. 

These  stanzas  are  unlike  Whittier, — as 
was  Jesus'  action  in  the  Temple  unlike  the 
general  course  pursued  by  that  one  of  whom 
it  was  written,  "  A  bruised  reed  will  he  not 
break,  or  smoking  flax  will  he  not  quench ; " 
and  they  indicate,  no  less  vividly  than  did 
the  action  of  the  great  Nazarene,  how  pro 
foundly  the  sense  of  shame  and  indignation 
was  stirred  in  the  poet  at  the  spectacle  of  the 
entire  clergy  of  an  opulent  city  lending  sanc 
tion  to  the  institution  of  slavery. 

The  poem  entitled,  "Massachusetts  to 
Virginia,"  created  a  profound  impression 
and  was  quoted  at  length  throughout  the 
North.  The  rugged  spirit  of  freedom  and 

73 


the  love  of  justice  which  characterized  the 
sturdy  Saxon  people  of  olden  time  are  very 
marked  in  these  lines  from  this  notable 
poem  : 


We  hear  thy  threats,  Virginia  !  thy  stormy  words  and  high 
Swell  harshly  on  the  southern  winds  which  melt  along  our 

sky; 
Yet,  not  one  brown,  hard  hand  foregoes  its  honest  labor 

here, — 
No  hewer  of  our  mountain  oaks  suspends  his  axe  in  fear. 

Wild  are  the  waves  which  lash  the  reefs  along  St.  George's 

bank, — 

Cold  on  the  shore  of  Labrador  the  fog  lies  white  and  dank  ; 
Through  storm  and  wave  and  blinding  mist  stout  are  the 

hearts  which  man 
The  fishing-smacks  of  Marblehead,  the  sea-boats  of  Cape 

Ann. 

The  cold  north  light  and  wintry  sun  glare  on  their  icy 

forms, 
Bent  grimly  o'er  their  straining  lines  or  wrestling  with  the 

storms  ; 
Free  as  the  winds  they  drive  before,  rough  as  the  waves 

they  roam, 
They  laugh  to  scorn  the  slaver's  threat  against  their  rocky 

home. 


74 


What  means  the  Old  Dominion  ?    Hath  she  forgot  the  day 
When  o'er  her  conquered  valleys  swept  the  Briton's  steel 

array? 

How  side  by  side,  with  sons  of  hers,  the  Massachusetts  men 
Encountered  Tarleton's  charge  of  fire,  and  stout  Cornwallis, 

then? 

Forgets  she  how  the  Bay  State,  in  answer  to  the  call 

Of  her  old  House  of  Burgesses,  spoke  out  from  Faneuil 

Hall? 
When,  echoing  back  her  Henry's  cry,  came  pulsing  on  each 

breath 
Of  Northern  winds,  the  thrilling  sounds  of  "  LIBERTY  OB 

DEATH  !" 


All  that  a  sister  State  should  do,  all  that  a/ree  State  may, 
Heart,  hand,  and  purse  we  proffer,  as  in  our  early  day  ; 
But  that  one  dark  loathsome  burden  ye  must  stagger  with 

alone, 
And  reap  the  bitter  harvest  which  ye  yourselves  have 

sown  ! 

Hold,  while  ye  may,  your  struggling  slaves,  and  burden 

God's  free  air 
With  woman's  shriek  beneath  the  lash,  and  manhood's  wild 

despair ; 
Cling  closer  to  the  "  cleaving  curse  "  that  writes  upon  your 

plains 
The  blasting  of  Almighty  wrath  against  a  land  of  chains. 


75 


We  wage  no  war, — we  lift  no  arm, — we  fling  no  torch 

within 
The  fire-damps  of  the  quaking  mine  beneath  your  soil  of 

sin; 

We  leave  ye  with  your  bondmen,  to  wrestle,  while  ye  can, 
With  the  strong  upward  tendencies  and  godlike  soul  of 

man  ! 

But  for  us  and  for  our  children,  the  vow  which  we  have 

given 

For  freedom  and  humanity  is  registered  in  heaven  ; 
No  slave-hunt  in  our  borders, — no  pirate  on  our  strand  ! 
No  fetters  in  the  Bay  State, — no  slave  upon  our  land! 

The  spirit  which  throbs  through  the  above 
stanzas  is  the  spirit  of  justice,  of  progress, 
and  the  dawn ;  and  whether  we  are  ready  to 
see  as  Whittier  saw  or  not,  we  must  recog 
nize  the  eternal  soul  of  Eight  as  pulsing 
through  the  lines.  And  these  verses  from 
"  Texas,"  although  they  are  not  exactly  what 
one  would  expect  from  a  Quaker,  the  spirit 
being  distinctly  defiant,  yet  they  must  have 
been  electrifying  in  their  effect  upon  the 
aroused  conscience  of  men  and  women  who 
were  so  far  removed  from  slavery  as  to  feel 


76 


no  personal  or  pecuniary  interest  in  it,  and 
who  had  known  little  save  the  darker  side  of 
the  evil : 

Up  the  hillside,  down  the  glen, 
Rouse  the  sleeping  citizen ; 
Summon  out  the  might  of  men! 

Like  a  lion  growling  low, — 
Like  a  night-storm  rising  slow, — 
Like  the  tread  of  unseen  foe, — 

It  is  coming, — it  is  nigh! 
Stand  your  homes  and  altars  by; 
On  your  own  free  thresholds  die. 

Clang  the  bells  in  all  your  spires; 
On  the  gray  hills  of  your  sires 
Fling  to  Heaven  your  signal-fires. 

From  Wachuset,  lone  and  bleak, 

Unto  Berkshire's  tallest  peak, 

Let  the  flame-tongued  heralds  speak. 

O,  for  God  and  duty  stand, 
Heart  to  heart  and  hand  to  hand, 
Round  the  old  graves  of  the  land. 

Whoso  shrinks  or  falters  now, 
Whoso  to  the  yoke  would  bow, 
Brand  the  craven  on  his  brow  ! 


77 


uMake  our  Union-bond  a  chain, 
Weak  as  tow  in  Freedom's  strain, 
Link  by  link  shall  snap  in  twain. 

44  Vainly  shall  your  sand-wrought  rope 
Bind  the  starry  cluster  up, 
Shattered  over  heaven's  blue  cope ! 

44  Give  us  bright  though  broken  rays, 
Kather  than  eternal  haze, 
Clouding  o'er  the  full-orbed  blaze. 

44  Take  your  land  of  sun  and  bloom; 
Only  leave  to  Freedom  room 
For  her  plough,  and  forge,  and  loom; 


4 'Boldly,  or  with  treacherous  art, 
Strike  the  blood- wrought  chain  apart; 
Break  the  Union's  mighty  heart; 

44  Work  the  ruin,  if  ye  will; 
Pluck  upon  your  heads  an  ill 
Which  shall  grow  and  deepen  still. 

*  *  #  #  * 

44  We  but  ask  our  rocky  strand, 
Freedom's  true  and  brother  band, 
Freedom's  strong  and  honest  hand,- 

44  Valleys  by  the  slave  untrod, 
And  the  Pilgrim's  mountain  sod, 
Blessed  of  our  fathers'  God!" 


78 


Whittier  was  unable  to  understand  how 
men  could  yield  to  expediency  when  Justice 
and  Eight  were  at  stake.  To  his  soul  at 
white  heat  and  strained  to  its  utmost  ten 
sion,  the  spectacle  of  men  arguing  that  this 
or  that  though  just  was  not  politic  and  there 
fore  should  not  be  entertained  was  so  appall 
ing,  that  he  scarcely  knew  how  to  frame 
words  to  utter  his  horror  and  indignation. 
In  these  lines,  published  in  1846,  entitled 
"The  Pine-Tree,"  we  hear  a  voice  issuing 
from  a  soul  burdened  by  shame  for  the  country 
and  weighed  down  with  pity  and  grief : 

Lift  again  the  stately  emblem  on  the  Bay  State's  rusted 
shield, 

Give  to  Northern  winds  the  Pine-Tree  on  our  banner's 
tattered  field. 

Sons  of  men  who  sat  in  council  with  their  Bibles  round  the 
board, 

Answering  England's  royal  missive  with  a  firm,  "  THUS 
SAITH  THE  LORD!'- 

Rise  again  for  home  and  freedom ! — set  the  battle  in  array ! — 

What  the  fathers  did  of  old  time  we  their  sons  must  do  to 
day. 

79 


Tell  us  not  of  banks  and  tariffs, — cease  your  paltry  pedler 

cries, — 
Shall  the  good  State  sink  her  honor  that  your  gambling 

stocks  may  rise  ? 
Would  ye  barter  man  for  cotton  ? — That  your  gains  may 

sum  up  higher, 
Must  we  kiss  the  feet  of  Moloch,  pass  our  children  through 

the  fire  ? 

Is  the  dollar  only  real  ? — God  and  truth  and  right  a  dream  ? 
Weighed  against  your  lying  ledgers  must  our  manhood  kick 

the  beam  ? 


O  my  God  ! — for  that  free  spirit,  which  of  old  in  Boston 
town 

Smote  the  Province  House  with  terror,  struck  the  crest  of 
Andros  down ! — 

For  another  strong-voiced  Adams'  in  the  city's  streets  to 
cry, 

"  Up  for  God  and  Massachusetts! — Set  your  feet  on  Mam 
mon's  lie! 

Perish  banks  and  perish  traffic, — spin  your  cotton's  latest 
pound, 

But  in  Heaven's  name  keep  your  honor, — keep  the  heart  o' 
the  Bay  State  sound! " 

Where's  the  MAN  for  Massachusetts  ? — Where's  the  voice 

to  speak  her  free  ? — 
Where's  the  hand  to  light  up  bonfires  from  her  mountains 

to  the  sea  ? 


80 


Beats  her  Pilgrim  pulse  no  longer  ? — Sits  she  dumb  in  her 

despair  ? — 
Has  she  none  to  break  the  silence  ? — Has  she  none  to  do 

and  dare  ? 
O  my  God  !   for  one  right  worthy  to  lift  up  her  rusted 

shield, 
And  to  plant  again  the  Pine-Tree  in  her  banner's  tattered 

field! 

In  the  following  strong  stanzas  we  again 
hear  the  prophet  speaking.  He  has  ascended 
the  mountain  far  above  the  dull,  plodding, 
self-absorbed  millions ;  he  has  communed  with 
the  Divine,  and  the  possibilities  for  progress, 
happiness  and  advancement  which  lie  along 
the  path  of  any  people  who  are  ever  loyal  to 
the  demands  of  justice  and  humanity  to  all 
are  no  less  vividly  impressed  on  his  mind, 
than  the  awful  disaster  which  confronts  those 
who  refuse  to  leave  the  "  mess  of  pottage  " 
found  in  self-gratification,  and  who  yield 
allegiance  to  shortsighted  selfism  to  the  de 
triment  of  others.  There  is  something  very 
fine  and  inspiring  in  these  lines  and,  what  is 
still  more  important,  they  are  as  appropriate 


81 


to-day  as  they  were  when  the  words  flew 
from  the  brain  of  the  poet,  as  sparks  from 
the  white-hot  iron  under  the  hammer  of  the 
smith  : 

Forever  ours !  for  good  or  ill,  on  us  the  burden  lies ; 
God's  balance,  watched  by  angels,  is  hung  across  the  skies. 
Shall  Justice,  Truth  and  Freedom  turn  the  poised  and 

trembling  scale  ? 

Or  shall  the  Evil  triumph,  and  robber  Wrong  prevail  ? 
Shall  the  broad  land  o'er  which  our  flag  in  starry  splendor 

waves 
Forego  through  us  its  freedom,  and  bear  the  tread  of  slaves  ? 

The  day  is  breaking  in  the  East  of  which  the  prophets  told, 
And  brightens  up  the  sky  of  Time  the  Christian  Age  of 

Gold; 

Old  Might  to  Eight  is  yielding,  battle  blade  to  clerkly  pen, 
Earth's  monarchs  are  her  peoples,  and  her  serfs  stand  up 

as  men; 

The  isles  rejoice  together,  in  a  day  are  nations  born, 
And  the  slave  walks  free  in  Tunis,  and  by  StambouTs 

Golden  Horn! 


The  Crisis  presses  on  us ;  face  to  face  with  us  it  stands, 
With  solemn  lips  of  question,  like  the  Sphinx  in  Egypt's 
sands ! 


This  day  we  fashion  Destiny,  our  web  of  Fate  we  spin; 
This  day  for  all  hereafter  choose  we  holiness  or  sin; 
Even  now  from  starry  Gerizim,  orEbal's  cloudy  crown, 
We  call  the  dews  of  blessing  or  the  bolts  of  cursing  down ! 

By  all  for  which  the  martyrs  bore  their  agony  and  shame; 
By  all  the  warning  words  of  truth  with  which  the  prophets 

came; 

By  the  Future  which  awaits  us ;  by  all  the  hopes  which  cast 
Their  faint  and  trembling  beams  across  the  blackness  of  the 

Past; 
And  by  the  blessed  thought  of  Him  who  for  Earth's  freedom 

died, 
O  my  people !   O  my  brothers !  let  us  choose  the  righteous 

side. 

"  Ichabod  "  is  one  of  the  most  withering 
blasts  that  ever  leaped  from  the  indignant 
heart  of  an  aroused  prophet-poet.  Its  spirit 
is  wholly  unlike  that  which  characterizes 
most  of  Whittier's  lines ;  but  it  is  a  creation 
of  great  power — in  its  way,  one  of  the  most 
terrible  utterances  to  be  found  in  our  liter 
ature.  And  curiously  enough  it  was  aimed 
at  a  kinsman  of  the  poet — a  New  England 
statesman  who  had  once  stood  very  high  in 


83 


the  regard  of  Mr.  Whittier,  and  for  whose 
intellectual  powers  he  ever  entertained  the 
greatest  admiration.  The  circumstances 
which  gave  rise  to  this  poem  are  interesting 
and  may  be  briefly  stated  as  follows :  On  the 
seventh  of  March,  1850,  Daniel  Webster  de 
livered  a  famous  speech  which  struck  dismay 
to  the  hearts  of  all  friends  of  abolition  in  the 
North.  In  this  oration  he  argued  that  no 
further  restrictions  on  the  extension  of 
slavery  in  the  territories  of  New  Mexico  and 
California  were  needed ;  that  colonization  by 
free  negroes  should  be  encouraged ;  and  that 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  must  be  obeyed. 
He  further  averred  that  the  labors  of  the 
Abolitionists  had  served  merely  to  fasten  the 
institution  of  slavery  more  firmly  than  ever 
on  the  South.  This  address,  strange  as  it 
may  appear  to  persons  who  do  not  under 
stand  that  conservatism  is  always  ready  to 
bulwark  an  outgrown  wrong  if  it  be  en 
throned  in  high  places,  was  applauded  by 

84 


leading  educators  of  Harvard  and  Andover 
colleges.  Indeed,  an  address  of  congratula 
tion  was  presented  to  Webster,  signed  by 
eight  hundred  prominent  citizens  of  the  Old 
Bay  State,  including  Rufus  Choate,  William 
H.  Prescott,  Jared  Sparks,  and  Professor  C. 
C.  Felton,  of  Harvard  College.  It  was  this 
speech  of  Webster's,  falling  as  it  did  with 
crushing  force  upon  the  Abolitionists,  that 
called  forth  these  terrible  lines  from  Whittier : 


So  fallen !  so  lost !  the  light  withdrawn 

Which  once  he  wore ! 
The  glory  from  his  gray  hairs  gone 

Forevermore ! 


Kevile  him  not,— the  Tempter  hath 

A  snare  for  all ; 
And  pitying  tears,  not  scorn  and  wrath, 

Befit  his  fall! 


O,  dumb  be  passion's  stormy  rage, 

When  he  who  might 
Have  lighted  up  and  led  his  age, 

Falls  back  in  night. 


85 


Scorn !    would  the  angels  laugh,  to  mark 

A  bright  soul  driven, 
Fiend-goaded,  down  the  endless  dark, 

From  hope  and  heaven ! 

Let  not  the  land  once  proud  of  him 

Insult  him  now, 
Nor  brand  with  deeper  shame  his  dim, 

Dishonored  brow. 

But  let  its  humbled  sons,  instead, 

From  sea  to  lake, 
A  long  lament,  as  for  the  dead, 

In  sadness  make. 

Of  all  we  loved  and  honored,  naught 

Save  power  remains, — 
A  fallen  angel's  pride  of  thought, 

Still  strong  in  chains. 

All  else  is  gone;  from  those  great  eyes 

The  soul  has  fled: 
When  faith  is  lost,  when  honor  dies, 

The  man  is  dead  I 

Then,  pay  the  reverence  of  old  days 

To  his  dead  fame; 
Walk  backward,  with  averted  gaze, 

And  hide  the  shame ! 

In  speaking  of  the  origin  of  this  poem 
Whittier   wrote  :  "  My   admiration    of  the 


86 


splendid  personality  and  intellectual  power 
of  the  great  Senator  was  never  stronger 
than  when  I  laid  down  his  speech  and,  in 
one  of  the  saddest  moments  of  my  life, 
penned  my  protest.  I  saw,  as  I  wrote,  with 
painful  clearness,  its  sure  results, — the  slave- 
power  arrogant  and  defiant,  strengthened 
and  encouraged  to  carry  out  its  scheme  for 
the  extension  of  its  baleful  system,  or  the 
dissolution  of  the  Union,  the  guaranties  of 
personal  liberty  in  the  free  States  broken 
down,  and  the  whole  country  made  the 
hunting  ground  of  slave-catchers.  In  the 
horror  of  such  a  vision,  so  soon  fearfully 
fulfilled,  if  one  spoke  at  all,  he  could  only 
speak  in  tones  of  stern  and  sorrowful  re 
buke."  "  This  poem,"  observes  Mr.  Ken 
nedy,  "has  been  compared  to  Browning's 
*  Lost  Leader ' — 

"  '  Just  for  a  handful  of  silver  he  left  us, 

Just  for  a  rihand  to  stick  in  his  coat — 


87 


"  '  He  alone  breaks  from  the  van  and  the  freemen, 
He  alone  sinks  to  the  rear  and  the  slaves. 


*' '  Deeds  will  be  done — while  he  boasts  his  quiescence, 
Still  bidding  crouch  whom  the  rest  bade  aspire; 
Blot  out  his  name,  then,  record  one  lost  soul  more.'  " 

Of  the  poems  composed  in  war  time  none 
is  more  stirring  than  "  Ein'  Feste  Burg," 
which  opens  with  these  memorable  lines : 

We  wait  beneath  the  furnace-blast 

The  pangs  of  transformation ; 
Not  painlessly  doth  God  recast 
And  mould  anew  the  nation. 
Hot  burns  the  fire 
Where  wrongs  expire; 
Nor  spares  the  hand 
That  from  the  land 
Uproots  the  ancient  evil. 

The  hand-breadth  cloud  the  sages  feared 

Its  bloody  rain  is  dropping; 
The  poison  plant  the  fathers  spared 
All  else  is  overtopping. 
East,  West,  South,  North, 
It  curses  the  earth; 
All  justice  dies, 
And  fraud  and  lies 
Live  only  in  its  shadow. 


88 


This  poem  was  set  to  music  and  sung 
with  tremendous  effect  during  the  early  days 
of  the  civil  war.  After  the  Battle  of  Bull 
Run,  the  famous  Hutchinson  family  of 
singers  entered  the  lines  of  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac,  hoping  to  reinvigorate  the 
drooping  spirits  of  the  Union  soldiers  with 
their  patriotic  songs.  On  singing  the  "  Ein' 
Feste  Burg,"  however,  General  McClellan 
requested  them  to  leave  the  lines.  The 
singers  appealed  to  President  Lincoln,  and 
this  poem  was  read  by  Secretary  Chase  to 
the  president  and  cabinet ;  after  which  the 
president  said :  "  It  is  just  the  kind  of  a 
song  I  wish  the  soldiers  to  hear."  The 
cabinet  voted  unanimously  in  favor  of  its 
being  sung  in  the  army,  and  the  singers 
were  readmitted  to  the  national  camps. 

Just  here  it  is  interesting  to  note  the  mar 
tial  spirit  which  pervades  many  of  Whittier's 
lines,  and  his  fondness  for  military  imagery. 
It  was  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  who  humorously 


alluded  to  him  as  "  A  fiery  Quaker  youth  to 
whom  the  Muse  had  perversely  assigned  a 
battle  trumpet."  This  fondness  for  the 
imagery  of  war  perplexed  Whittier  not  a 
little,  and  more  than  once  when  referring  to 
it  he  expressed  the  conviction  that  there  was 
"  somewhere  in  his  make-up  quite  a  dash  of 
the  blood  of  the  old  sea  king  of  the  ninth 
century."  Of  course,  anything  military  was 
as  foreign  to  the  Quaker  theory  of  life  and 
practice  as  was  the  shedding  of  blood  ab 
horrent  to  Whittier,  the  poet.  Nevertheless, 
during  the  early  days  of  the  war  many  young 
Quakers  laid  aside  their  drab  for  the  soldier's 
uniform.  In  northern  New  Jersey,  for  ex 
ample,  a  Quaker  regiment  was  raised  of  one 
thousand  members,  much  to  the  grief  and 
dismay  of  many  old  and  staid  pillars  in  the 
society  of  Friends.  At  one  of  its  quarterly 
meetings,  the  martial  occupation  of  these  stray 
sheep  brought  forth  severe  criticism  from 
a  number  of  members ;  whereupon  one  sym- 

90 


pathizer  with  those  who  had  donned  the  blue 
arose  and  told  a  little  story :  "  He  said  that 
his  grandfather  once  had  dealings  with  an 
obstreperous  'man  of  the  world/  who  pro 
voked  him  until  his  patience  was  worn 
out.  All  at  once  he  threw  off  his  coat  and 
laid  it  on  the  ground,  saying,  '  Lie  there, 
•Quaker,  till  I  give  this  rascal  his  dues  !  '  and 
then  proceeded  to  give  him  a  good  drub- 
bing." 

The  poet  has  given  us  a  graphic  pen  pict 
ure  of  himself  during  the  anti-slavery  con 
flict  in  the  following  lines  from  "  The  Tent 
on  the  Beach  "  : 


And  one  there  was,  a  dreamer  born, 

Who,  with  a  mission  to  fulfill, 
Had  left  the  Muses'  haunts  to  turn 

The  crank  of  an  opinion-mill, 
Making  his  rustic  reed  of  song 
A  weapon  in  the  war  with  wrong, 
Yoking  his  fancy  to  the  breaking-plough 
That  beam-deep  turned  the  soil  for  truth  to  spring  and 
grow. 


91 


Too  quiet  seemed  the  man  to  ride 
The  winged  Hippogriff  Reform; 
Was  his  a  voice  from  side  to  side 

To  pierce  the  tumult  of  the  storm  ? 
A  silent,  shy,  peace-loving  man, 
He  seemed  no  fiery  partisan 
To  hold  his  way  against  the  public  frown, 
The  ban  of  Church  and  State,  the  fierce  mob's 
hounding  down. 

For  while  he  wrought  with  strenuous  will 

The  work  his  hands  had  found  to  do, 
He  heard  the  fitful  music  still 

Of  winds  that  out  of  dream-land  blew. 
The  din  about  him  could  not  drown 
What  the  strange  voices  whispered  down; 
Along  his  task-field  weird  processions  swept, 
The  visionary  pomp  of  stately  phantoms  stepped. 

Great  excitement  prevailed  throughout 
the  North  when  President  Lincoln  counter 
manded  as  premature  General  Fremont's 
proclamation  of  freedom  to  the  slaves  in 
Missouri  belonging  to  those  who  had  taken 
up  arms  against  the  Federal  government. 
Whittier  at  once  penned  his  memorable  ode 
to  John  C.  Fremont,  in  which  occur  these 
lines : 


92 


Thy  error,  Fremont,  simply  was  to  act 
A  brave  man's  part,  without  the  statesman's  tact, 
And,  taking  counsel  but  of  common  sense, 
To  strike  at  cause  as  well  as  consequence. 

****** 

Still  take  thou  courage !  God  has  spoken  through  thee, 
Irrevocable,  the  mighty  words,  Be  Free ! 

A  most  interesting  anecdote  relating  to 
the  above  verses  is  related  by  Mrs.  Jessie 
Fremont.  In  September,  1863,  she  visited 
Amesbury  in  order  to  see  the  poet,  who,  at 
the  time,  was  absent  from  his  home.  He, 
however,  soon  returned  and  she  met  him  in 
a  frank,  enthusiastic  manner,  but  did  not 

disclose  her  identity But  here  I  must  let 

her  describe  the  incident,  as  furnished  to 
Mr.  Packard  for  his  "  Life  and  Letters  of 
Whittier": 

"  I  began  by  telling  him  he  had  strongly 
influenced  my  young  life ;  that  I  was  but 
twenty-two  when  I  cut  from  a  newspaper  and 
pasted  in  my  prayer-book  his  '  Angel  of 
Patience ; '  that  the  lines 


93 


"  *  The  throbs  of  wounded  pride  to  still, 
And  make  our  own  our  Father's  will,' 

were  the  hardest  to  get  by  heart  I  had  ever 
tried,  for  patience  and  submission  were  not 
natural  growths  in  my  part  of  the  country. 

"  '  Thy  speech  is  Southern  ;  what  is  thy 
name  ? ' 

"  '  Not  yet/  I  said.  '  I  am  Southern ;  but 
let  me  tell  you  more  first.  I  want  to  tell  you 
of  your  last,  your  greatest  help  to  us  both — 
to  me  and,  greatest,  to  my  husband.' 

"  And  then  I  told  him  as  briefly  as  I 
could  how  over  thirty  thousand  men  were 
next  day  to  break  camp  for  active  pursuit  of 
the  enemy, — '  the  enemies  of  the  Union,  Mr. 
Whittier.'  It  was  Sunday  evening;  the 
setting  sun  lit  up  the  October  colors  of  the 
trees,  and  picked  out  the  white  of  tents  cov 
ering  the  many  hills  ;  the  men  were  hushed 
into  reverent  stillness,  for  the  bands  played 
the  air,  and  then  voices,  swelling  to  thousands 
on  thousands,  took  up  the  familiar  words : 

94 


u  *  Before  Jehovah's  awful  throne.' 

Before  that  awful  throne  who  could  know 
how  soon  he  must  appear  ?  And  why  ? 
What  good  attained  for  which  a  man  should 
lay  down  his  life  ? 

"  The  day's  mail  was  brought  into  the 
General's  tent.  He  had  no  heart  toaopen  it, 
for  his  highest,  dearest,  purest  hopes  had 
been  flung  back  on  him,  and  himself  dis 
approved.  But  I,  who  was  always  the  secre 
tary  and  other-self,  went  on  with  the  things 
of  every  day,  '  taking  the  burden  of  life 
again  ; '  and  think  of  my  reward  when  in  the 
New  York  Evening  Post  there  met  my  eye 
your  inspired,  prophetic  words  ! 

"  Uplifted  beyond  the  time  of  trial,  I  went 
out  with  the  paper  to  where,  standing  over 
the  fire — as  he  so  often  stood  in  lonely  times 
of  suffering  and  dejection — was  the  General, 
alone.  I  read  him  the  whole.  He  was 
speechless  with  increasing,  overwhelming, 
glorified  feeling — transfigured.  Taking  the 

95 


paper  and  bending  to  read  it,  for  himself,  by 
the  blazing  logs,  at  length  he  said : 

" '  He  speaks  for  posterity,  I  knew  I  was 
right.  I  want  these  words  on  my  tomb 
stone  : 

"  '  God  hath  spoken  through  thee, 
Irrevocable,  the  mighty  words,  Be  Free! ' 

Now  I  can  die  for  what  I  have  done.' 

"  Whittier  had  grasped  my  arm,  and  his 
eyes  blazed.  '  What  is  thy  name  ? ' 

" '  Fremont.' 

"  Without  a  word  he  swung  out  of  the 
room,  to  return,  infolding  in  his  helping  em 
brace  a  frail  little  woman,  tenderly  saying  to 
the  invalid  he  was  bringing  from  her  seclu 
sion  : 

" '  Elizabeth,  this  is  Jessie  Fremont — under 
our  roof !  Our  mother  would  have  been 
glad  to  see  this  day.' ' 

At  length  the  long  agony  of  suspense  drew 
to  a  close.  The  fierce  battle  waged  by  the 
little  Spartan  band  had  given  place  to  one 

96 


of  those  profound  awakenings  which  suggest 
the  on-sweeping  of  a  prairie  fire.  The  ar 
rogance  of  the  government  and  the  courts, 
probably,  did  more  than  the  agitation  of  the 
abolitionists  to  precipitate  the  war ;  but 
there  can  be  no  doubt  but  that  the  shafts  of 
Garrison,  the  eloquence  of  Phillips,  the 
clarion  voice  of  brave  Parker  Pillsbury,  the 
fiction  of  Mrs.  Stowe,  the  stirring  songs  of 
the  Hutchinson  family,  the  writings  of 
Horace  Greeley  and,  last  but  not  least,  the 
poems  of  Whittier  and  Lowell  were  tre 
mendous  educational  forces,  while  the  tragic 
fate  of  John  Brown  gave  great  additional 
impetus  to  the  cause  of  abolition.  When 
Sumter  was  fired  on  the  North  was  electrified, 
and  war  grim  and  terrible  ensued,  during 
which  the  evil  of  slavery  went  down ;  with 
peace  came  a  wider  freedom  than  we  had 
before  recognized.  Then  the  bosom  of  our 
poet  swelled  with  reverent  thanksgiving, 
while  his  heart  was  melted  with  pity  for  the 

7  97 


misery,  the  heartaches,  and  the  lives  lost  in  the 
awful  strife.  One  day  the  news  came  that 
the  amendment  had  passed,  abolishing  slavery 
in  the  United  States,  and  Whittier,  seated  in 
a  meeting-house  of  the  Friends,  at  Ames- 
bury,  heard  the  glad  clanging  of  the  bells  in 
celebration  of  the  event.  The  hour  was  one  of 
the  most  impressive  of  his  life.  He  was  in  the 
humble  sanctuary  of  his  people  worshipping 
God  y  the  merry  pealing  of  the  bells  brought 
the  message  of  a  triumph  of  justice  such  as 
he  had  scarcely  dared  to  pray  for ;  and  his 
breast  became  tremulous  with  emotion,  his 
brain  throbbed  with  exultant  thoughts — a 
great  song  of  triumph  and  thanksgiving  rose 
in  his  soul,  a  song  destined  to  live  as  long  as 
our  language  endures.  And  that  is  how  the 
following  magnificent  poem,  known  as  "  Laus 
Deo !  "  came  to  be  written : 

It  is  done ! 

Clang  of  bell  and  roar  of  gun 
Send  the  tidings  up  and  down. 

96 


How  the  belfries  rock  and  reel ! 
How  the  great  guns,  peal  on  peal, 
Fling  the  joy  from  town  to  town! 

King,  O  bells! 
Every  stroke  exulting  tells 

Of  the  burial  hour  of  crime. 
Loud  and  long,  that  all  may  hear, 
King  for  every  listening  ear 

Of  Eternity  and  Time ! 

Let  us  kneel: 
God's  own  voice  is  in  that  peal, 

And  this  spot  is  holy  ground. 
Lord,  forgive  us !    What  are  we, 
That  our  eyes  this  glory  see, 

That  our  ears  have  heard  the  sound! 

For  the  Lord 

On  the  whirlwind  is  abroad; 
In  the  earthquake  he  has  spoken ; 

He  has  Smitten  with  his  thunder 

The  iron  walls  asunder, 
And  the  gates  of  brass  are  broken! 

Loud  and  long 
Lift  the  old  exulting  song; 

Sing  with  Miriam  by  the  sea, 
He  has  cast  the  mighty  down; 
Horse  and  rider  sink  and  drown; 

He  hath  triumphed  gloriously  ! " 


Did  we  dare, 

In  our  agony  of  prayer, 
Ask  for  more  than  He  has  done  ? 

When  was  ever  His  right  hand 

Over  any  time  or  land 
Stretched  as  now  beneath  the  sun  ? 


How  they  pale, 
Ancient  myth  and  song  and  tale 

In  this  wonder  of  our  days, 
When  the  cruel  rod  of  war 
Blossoms  white  with  righteous  law, 

And  the  wrath  of  man  is  praise ! 


Blotted  out ! 
All  within  and  all  about 

Shall  a  fresher  life  begin ; 
Freer  breathe  the  universe 
As  it  rolls  its  heavy  curse 

On  the  dead  and  buried  sin! 


It  is  done  I 
In  the  circuit  of  the  sun 

Shall  the  sound  thereof  go  forth. 
It  shall  bid  the  sad  rejoice, 
It  shall  give  the  dumb  a  voice, 

It  shall  belt  with  joy  the  earth! 

100 


King  and  swing, 
Bells  of  joy !    On  morning' s  wing 

Send  the  song  of  praise  abroad ! 
With  a  sound  of  broken  chains 
Tell  the  nations  that  He  reigns, 

Who  alone  is  Lord  and  Godl 


101 


A    MODERN    APOSTLE    OF    LOFTY 
SPIRITUALITY. 


"  In  time  to  be 

Shall  holier  altars  rise  to  Thee,— 
Thy  Church  our  broad  humanity  ! 


"  A  sweeter  song  shall  then  be  heard, — 
The  music  of  the  world's  accord 
Confessing  Christ,  the  Inward  Word  ! 

"  That  song  shall  swell  from  shore  to  shore, 
One  hope,  one  faith,  one  love  restore 
The  seamless  robe  that  Jesus  wore." 

— Whittier. 

"  The  world  is  growing  better  ;  the  Lord  reigns;  our  old 
planet  is  wheeling  slowly  into  fuller  light.  I  despair  of 
nothing  good.  All  will  come  in  due  time  that  is  really 
needed.  All  we  have  to  do  is  to  work — and  wait," 

—Whittier,  in  Pickartfs  "  Life  and  Letters." 


104 


III.     31    a^o&ern    9Hpo#tle    of    Xoftp 


NTERESTING  as  is  the  New 
England  poet  when  considered 
as  a  barefoot  boy,  as  the  in 
spired  prophet  of  freedom,  as  the  charm 
ing  lyric  poet  and  graphic  delineator 
of  New  England  life,  and  dear  as  he 
is  to  us  as  the  simple  and  sincere  man, 
it  is  as  the  true  mystic  or  inspired 
teacher  of  the  higher  life  that  he  ap 
peals  especially  to  the  large  and  rapidly 
increasing  number  of  persons  who,  along 
various  lines  of  thought  and  experience,  are 
being  brought  to-day  into  what  is  essentially 
a  deeply  spiritual  attitude,  although  they 
feel  little  or  no  attraction  toward  the  empty 
forms,  creeds  or  dogmas  which  have  so  long 

105 


claimed  to  constitute  religion.  The  "  voice 
of  God  within/' or  "the  Inner  Light,"  of 
Whittier  is  becoming  a  far  greater  reality  to 
the  conscience  of  our  civilization  than  Mam 
mon-worshipping  and  easy-going  conven 
tionalists  imagine.  On  this  point  the  late 
Mrs.  Claflin  observed : 

"  Mr.  Whittier  believed  in  following  the 
Inner  Light,  and  when  he  thought  he  was 
directed  by  that  Inner  Light,  no  power  on 
earth  could  influence  him  to  turn  aside.  If 
he  decided  to  move  at  a  certain  moment  of 
time,  nothing  could  induce  him  to  change 
his  mind  5  no  storm  was  severe  enough  to 
deter  him  from  going  on  the  train  he  had 
set  his  heart  on.  He  used  to  tell  a  story  of 
one  of  his  friends  as  an  illustration  of  the 
wisdom  of  being  guided  by  and  yielding  to 
the  Inner  Light : 

" '  I  have  an  old  friend/  he  said,  '  who 
followed  the  leadings  of  the  Spirit,  and 

106 


always  made  it  a  point  to  go  to  meeting  on 
First-day.  On  one  First-day  morning,  he 
made  ready  for  meeting,  and  suddenly  turn 
ing  to  his  wife,  said,  '  I  am  not  going  to 
meeting  this  morning ;  I  am  going  to  take 
a  walk.'  His  wife  inquired  where  he  was 
going,  and  he  replied :  '  I  don't  know ;  I  am 
impelled  to  go,  I  know  not  where.'  With 
his  walking-stick  he  started,  and  went  out  of 
the  city  for  a  mile  or  two,  and  came  to  a 
country  house  that  stood  some  distance 
from  the  road.  The  gate  stood  open,  and  a 
narrow  lane,  into  which  he  turned,  led  up  to 
the  house,  where  something  unusual  seemed 
to  be  going  on.  There  were  several  vehicles 
standing  around  the  yard,  and  groups  of 
people  were  gathered  here  and  there.  When 
he  reached  the  house,  he  found  there  was  a 
funeral,  and  he  entered  with  the  neighbors, 
who  were  there  to  attend  the  service.  He 
listened  to  the  funeral  address  and  to  the 
prayer.  It  was  the  body  of  a  young  woman 

107 


lying  in  the  casket  before  him,  and  he  arose 
and  said  :  '  I  have  been  led  by  the  Spirit  to 
this  house ;  I  know  nothing  of  the  circum 
stances  connected  with  the  death  of  this 
person  ;  but  I  am  impelled  by  the  Spirit  to 
say  that  she  has  been  accused  of  something 
of  which  she  is  not  guilty,  and  the  false 
accusation  has  hastened  her  death.' 

66 '  The  friend  sat  down,  and  a  murmur  of 
surprise  went  through  the  room.  The  min 
ister  arose  and  said, (  Are  you  a  god  or  what 
are  you  ? '  The  friend  replied :  ( I  am 
only  a  poor,  sinful  man,  but  I  was  led  by 
the  Inner  Light  to  come  to  this  house  and 
say  what  I  have  said,  and  I  would  ask  the 
person  in  this  room  who  knows  that  the 
young  woman  now  beyond  the  power  of 
speech  was  not  guilty  of  what  she  was 
accused  of ,  to  vindicate  her  in  this  presence.5 
After  a  fearful  pause,  a  woman  stood  up  and 
said  :  '  I  am  the  person,'  and  while  weeping 
hysterically,  she  confessed  that  she  had  wil- 

108 


fully  slandered  the  dead  girl.  The  friend 
departed  on  his  homeward  way.  Such/ 
said  Mr.  Whittier,  <  was  the  leading  of  the 
Inner  Light.' " 

The  same  writer  makes  with  regard  to 
Whittier' s  religious  convictions  the  following 
interesting  observations,  which  accord  with 
the  spirit  of  his  religious  poems : 

"  Mr.  Whittier  was  a  many-sided  man  and 
could  adapt  himself  to  any  condition  of 
mind.  He  had  great  warmth  of  affection 
for  his  friends;  tenderness  to  the  erring, 
and  capacity  for  suffering  with  others,  were 
marked  traits  in  his  character, — but  he  had 
always  faith  in  ultimate  good  for  all.  He 
said,  '  Surely  God  would  not  permit  His 
children  to  suffer  if  it  were  not  to  work  out 
for  them  the  highest  good.  For  God  never 
does,  nor  suffers  to  be  done,  but  that  which 
we  would  do  if  we  could  see  the  end  of  all 


109 


events  as  well  as  He.  The  little  circum 
stance  of  death  will  make  no  difference  with 
me;  I  shall  have  the  same  friends  in  that 
other  world  that  I  have  here ;  the  same  loves 
and  aspirations  and  occupations.  If  it  were 
not  so,  I  should  not  he  myself,  and  surely  I 
shall  not  lose  my  identity.  God's  love  is  so 
infinitely  greater  than  mine,  that  I  cannot 
fear  for  His  children,  and  when  I  long  to 
help  some  poor,  suffering,  erring  fellow- 
creature,  I  am  consoled  with  the  thought 
that  His  great  heart  of  love  is  more  moved 
than  mine  can  be,  and  so  I  rest  in 
peace.' ' 

How  beautifully  are  these  thoughts  of  the 
poet  amplified  in  the  following  stanzas  from 
"  The  Eternal  Goodness  "  : 


But  still  my  human  hands  are  weak 
To  hold  your  iron  creeds : 

Against  the  words  ye  bid  me  speak 
My  heart  within  me  pleads. 

110 


Who  fathoms  the  Eternal  Thought? 

Who  talks  of  scheme  and  plan  ? 
The  Lord  is  God !    He  needeth  not 

The  poor  device  of  man. 

I  walk  with  hare,  hushed  feet  the  ground 
Te  tread  with  boldness  shod; 

I  dare  not  fix  with  mete  and  hound 
The  love  and  power  of  God. 

Ye  praise  His  justice;  even  such 

His  pitying  love  I  deem: 
Ye  seek  a  king;  I  fain  would  touch 

The  robe  that  hath  no  seam. 

Ye  see  the  curse  which  overbroods 

A  world  of  pain  and  loss ; 
I  hear  our  Lord's  beatitudes 

And  prayer  upon  the  cross. 


Yet,  in  the  maddening  maze  of  things, 
And  tossed  by  storm  and  flood, 

To  one  fixed  trust  my  spirit  clings ; 
I  know  that  God  is  good ! 

Not  mine  to  look  where  cherubim 

And  seraphs  may  not  see, 
But  nothing  can  be  good  in  Him 

Which  evil  is  in  me. 

Ill 


The  wrong  that  pains  my  soul  below 

I  dare  not  throne  above; 
I  know  not  of  His  hate, — I  know 

His  goodness  and  His  love. 


And  so  beside  the  Silent  Sea 

I  wait  the  muffled  oar; 
No  harm  from  Him  can  come  to  me 

On  ocean  or  on  shore. 

I  know  not  where  His  islands  lift 

Their  fronded  palms  in  air; 
I  only  know  I  cannot  drift 

Beyond  His  love  and  care. 

The  true  mystic  is  further  revealed  in  the 
following  verses  from  "  In  Quest  " : 

"  The  riddle  of  the  world  is  understood 
Only  by  him  who  feels  that  God  is  good, 
As  only  he  can  feel  who  makes  his  love 
The  ladder  of  his  faith,  and  climbs  above 
On  th'  rounds  of  his  best  instincts ;  draws  no  line 
Between  mere  human  goodness  and  divine, 
But,  judging  God  by  what  in  him  is  best, 
With  a  child's  trust  leans  on  a  Father's  breast, 
And  hears  unmoved  the  old  creeds  babble  still 
Of  kingly  power  and  dread  caprice  of  will, 


112 


Chary  of  blessing,  prodigal  of  curse, 

The  pitiless  doomsman  of  the  universe. 

Can  Hatred  ask  for  love  ?    Can  Selfishness 

Invite  to  self-denial  ?    Is  He  less 

Than  man  in  kindly  dealing  ?    Can  He  break 

His  own  great  law  of  fatherhood,  forsake 

And  curse  His  children  ?    Not  for  earth  and  heaven 

Can  separate  tables  of  the  law  be  given. 

No  rule  can  bind  which  He  himself  denies; 

The  truths  of  time  are  not  eternal  lies." 

So  heard  I;  and  the  chaos  round  me  spread 
To  light  and  order  grew;  and,  "Lord,"  I  said, 
"Our  sins  are  our  tormentors,  worst  of  all 
Felt  in  distrustful  shame  that  dares  not  call 
Upon  Thee  as  our  Father.    We  have  set 
A  strange  god  up,  but  Thou  remainest  yet. 
All  that  I  feel  of  pity,  Thou  hast  known 
Before  I  was ;  my  best  is  all  Thy  own. 
From  Thy  great  heart  of  goodness  mine  but  drew 
Wishes  and  prayers ;  but  Thou,  O  Lord,  wilt  do, 
In  Thy  own  time,  by  ways  I  cannot  see, 
All  that  I  feel  when  I  am  nearest  Theel  " 

Whittier  stood  in  the  midway  between  the 
departing  ideals  of  ancient  orthodoxy  and  the 
religion  of  the  future.  This  is  well  illus 
trated  in  that  exquisite  poem,  "  The  Brother 
of  Mercy/'  which  the  reader  will  remember 


113 


describes  the  death  of  one  Piero  Luca,  an  old, 
gray  porter,  who  for  forty  years  had  wrought 
deeds  of  love  and  kindness.  When  the 
hour  came  and  the  lengthened  shadows 
marked  the  close  of  life's  day,  a  barefoot 
monk  seeks  thus  to  comfort  the  humble, 
Christ-lit  soul  of  the  dying  man : 

"  My  son," 

The  monk  said  soothingly,  "  thy  work  is  done  ; 
And  no  more  as  a  servant,  but  the  guest 
Of  God  thou  enterest  thy  eternal  rest. 
No  toil,  no  tears,  no  sorrow  for  the  lost 
Shall  mar  thy  perfect  bliss.     Thou  shalt  sit  down 
Clad  in  white  robes,  and  wear  a  golden  crown 
Forever  and  forever." 

The  following  lines  in  a  very  real  way  re 
flect  the  poet's  aversion  to  the  ancient  and 
materialistic  conception  of  God  and  heaven, 
no  less  than  his  ideals  of  true  religion,  which 
the  Apostle  James  cogently  summarized  as 
consisting  in  visiting  the  fatherless  and 
widows  in  their  affliction,  and  keeping  one's 
self  unspotted  from  the  world  : 

114 


Piero  tossed 

On  his  sick-pillow  :  "  Miserable  me  ! 
I  am  too  poor  for  such  grand  company  ; 
The  crown  would  be  too  heavy  for  this  gray 
Old  head  ;  and  God  forgive  me  if  I  say 
It  would  be  hard  to  sit  there  night  and  day, 
Like  an  image  in  the  Tribune,  doing  naught 
With  these  hard  hands,  that  all  my  life  have  wrought, 
Not  for  bread  only,  but  for  pity's  sake. 
I'm  dull  at  prayers  :  I  could  not  keep  awake, 
Counting  my  beads.     Mine's  but  a  crazy  head, 
Scarce  worth  the  saving,  if  all  else  be  dead. 
And  if  one  goes  to  heaven  without  a  heart, 
God  knows  he  leaves  behind  his  better  part. 
I  love  my  fellow-men  ;  the  worst  I  know 
I  would  do  good  to.    Will  death  change  me  so 
That  I  shall  sit  among  the  lazy  saints, 
Turning  a  deaf  ear  to  the  sore  complaints 
Of  souls  that  suffer  ?    Why,  I  never  yet 
Left  a  poor  dog  in  the  strada  hard  beset, 
Or  ass  o'erladen  !    Must  I  rate  man  less 
Than  dog  or  ass,  in  holy  selfishness  ? 
Methinks  (Lord,  pardon,  if  the  thought  be  sin  ! ) 
The  world  of  pain  were  better,  if  therein 
One's  heart  might  still  be  human,  and  desires 
Of  natural  pity  drop  upon  its  fires 
Some  cooling  tears." 

Thereat  the  pale  monk  crossed 

His    brow,    and,    muttering,    "  Madman  !    thou    art 
lost  !" 


115 


Took  up  his  pyx  and  fled  ;  and,  left  alone, 
The  sick  man  closed  his  eyes  with  a  great  groan 
That  sank  into  a  prayer,  "  Thy  will  be  done  ! " 

Then  was  he  made  aware,  by  soul  or  ear, 
Of  somewhat  pure  and  holy  bending  o'er  him, 
And  of  a  voice  like  that  of  her  who  bore  him, 
Tender  and  most  compassionate:  "  Never  fear  ! 
For  heaven  is  love,  as  God  himself  is  love  ; 
Thy  work  below  shall  be  thy  work  above." 
And  when  he  looked,  lo  !  in  the  stern  monk's  place 
He  saw  the  shining  of  an  angel's  face  ! 

The  poet's  religious  ideals  are  exquisitely 
set  forth  in  these  stanzas : 

O  Love  Divine  ! — whose  constant  beam 

Shines  on  the  eyes  that  will  not  see, 
And  waits  to  bless  us,  while  we  dream 

Thou  leavest  us,  because  we  turn  from  thee  ! 

All  souls  that  struggle  and  aspire, 

All  hearts  of  prayer  by  thee  are  lit ; 
And  dim,  or  clear,  thy  tongues  of  fire 

On  dusky  tribes  and  twilight  centuries  sit. 


Truth  which  the  sage  and  prophet  saw, 
Long  sought  without,  but  found  within, 

The  law  of  Love  beyond  all  law, 
The  Life  o'erflooding  mortal  death  and  sin  ! 


116 


The  present  broadening  of  man's  ideas 
concerning  God  is  seen  on  every  side,  both 
within  and  without  the  Church.  The  realiza 
tion  that  empty  dogma  and  soulless  creed  are 
no  more  religion  than  they  were  when  Jesus 
condemned  the  scribes  and  Pharisees  of  old, 
is  taking  possession  of  the  conscience  of  our 
civilization,  at  least  of  those  who  hunger  and 
thirst  after  truth.  Whittier  thus  anticipated 
the  noble  views  which  to-day  are  coming  to 
be  so  generally  accepted :  * 

Above,  below,  in  sky  and  sod, 
In  leaf  and  spar,  in  star  and  man, 
Well  might  the  wise  Athenian  scan 

The  geometric  signs  of  God, 
The  measured  order  of  His  plan. 

And  India's  mystics  sang  aright 

Of  the  One  Life  pervading  all, — 

One  Being's  tidal  rise  and  fall 
In  soul  and  form,  in  sound  and  sight, — 

Eternal  outflow  and  recall. 


*  The  Over-Heart. 
117 


Fade,  pomp  of  dreadful  imagery 
Wherewith  mankind  have  deified 
Their  hate,  and  selfishness,  and  pride  ! 

Let  the  scared  dreamer  wake  to  see 
The  Christ  of  Nazareth  at  his  side  ! 

What  doth  that  holy  Guide  require  ? — 
No  rite  of  pain,  nor  gift  of  blood, 
But  man  a  kindly  brotherhood, 

Looking,  where  duty  is  desire, 
To  Him,  the  beautiful  and  good. 

One  would  almost  imagine  the  Quaker 
poet  had  been  drinking  from  the  fountain  of 
Eastern  mysticism,  after  reading  these  verses 
from  "  A  Mystery  "  : 

A  presence,  strange  at  once  and  known, 

Walked  with  me  as  my  guide  ; 
The  skirts  of  some  forgotten  life 

Trailed  noiseless  at  my  side. 

Was  it  a  dim-remembered  dream  ? 

Or  glimpse  through  aeons  old  ? 
The  secret  which  the  mountains  kept 

The  river  never  told. 

But  from  the  vision  ere  it  passed 

A  tender  hope  I  drew, 
And,  pleasant  as  a  dawn  of  spring, 

The  thought  within  me  grew, 


118 


That  love  would  temper  every  change, 

And  soften  all  surprise, 
And,  misty  with  the  dreams  of  earth, 

The  hills  of  Heaven  arise. 

No  poet  of  our  time  has  been  a  firmer  be 
liever  in  the  present,  or  in  the  splendid  future 
to  which  mankind  is  slowly  but  laboriously 
tending,  than  was  Whittier.  The  very  key 
note  of  his  inspired  conviction  was  sounded 
in  the  "  Chapel  of  the  Hermits  "  in  the  fol 
lowing  utterances : 

Yet,  sometimes  glimpses  on  my  sight, 
Through  present  wrong,  the  eternal  right ; 
And  step  hy  step,  since  time  began, 
I  see  the  steady  gain  of  man ; 

That  all  of  good  the  past  hath  had 
Remains  to  make  our  own  time  glad, 
Our  common  daily  life  divine, 
And  every  land  a  Palestine. 


O  friend  !  we  need  nor  rock  nor  sand, 
Nor  storied  stream  of  Morning-Land ; 
The  heavens  are  glassed  in  Merrimack,- 
What  more  could  Jordan  render  back  ? 

119 


We  lack  but  open  eye  and  ear 
To  find  the  Orient's  marvels  here; — 
The  still,  small  voice  in  autumn's  hush, 
Yon  maple  wood  the  burning  bush. 

For  still  the  new  transcends  the  old, 
In  signs  and  tokens  manifold ; — 
Slaves  rise  up  men ;  the  olive  waves, 
With  roots  deep  set  in  battle  graves  ! 

Through  the  harsh  noises  of  our  day 
A  low,  sweet  prelude  finds  its  way; 
Through  clouds  of  doubt,  and  creeds  of  fear, 
A  light  is  breaking,  calm  and  clear. 

That  song  of  Love,  now  low  and  far, 
Erelong  shall  swell  from  star  to  star! 
That  light,  the  breaking  day,  which  tips 
The  golden-spired  Apocalypse  ! 

With  equal  clearness  were  his  beliefs  as 
regards  duty  expressed  in  these  lines  from 
"  Seed-Time  and  Harvest  " : 

It  may  not  be  our  lot  to  wield 
The  sickle  in  the  ripened  field ; 
Nor  ours  to  hear,  on  summer  eves, 
The  reaper's  song  among  the  sheaves. 

Yet  where  our  duty's  task  is  wrought 
In  unison  with  God's  great  thought, 


120 


The  near  aiid  future  blend  in  one, 
And  whatsoe'er  is  willed,  is  done! 

The  poet's  trust  in  the  Over-Soul  is  fre 
quently  uttered,  although  at  times  there 
seems  to  be  a  wavering  in  the  tones.  When 
he  is  on  the  mountain  top  he  is  serene,  and 
then  we  find  him  unmoved  in  his  profound 
conviction.  Thus,  in  the  little  poem  entitled 
"  Trust/'  he  exclaims  : 

"  All  is  of  God  that  is,  and  is  to  be; 

And  God  is  good."     Let  this  suffice  us  still, 

Resting  in  childlike  trust  upon  His  will 

Who  moves  to  His  great  ends  unthwarted  by  the  ill. 

To  a  correspondent  in  1881  he  wrote :  "  The 
world  is  growing  better;  the  Lord  reigns; 
our  old  planet  is  wheeling  slowly  into  fuller 
light.  I  despair  of  nothing  good.  All  will 
come  in  due  time  that  is  really  needed.  All 
that  we  have  to  do  is  to  work — and  wait." 
And  again,  in  "  The  Grave  by  the  Lake," 
after  giving  us  an  exquisite  picture  of  lake 
and  sky,  mingled  with  philosophy  and  mus- 

121 


ings,  he  breaks  forth  much  as  did  the  elder 
prophets,  speaking  with  the  authority  of  one 
who  is  moved  by  a  lofty  inner  voice : 

Hear'st  thou,  O  of  little  faith, 
What  to  thee  the  mountain  saith, 
What  is  whispered  by  the  trees  ? — 
"  Cast  on  God  thy  care  for  these; 
Trust  Him,  if  thy  sight  he  dim  : 
Doubt  for  them  is  doubt  of  Him. 


"  Not  with  hatred's  undertow 
Doth  the  Love  Eternal  flow; 
Every  chain  that  spirits  wear 
Crumbles  in  the  breath  of  prayer; 
And  the  penitent's  desire 
Opens  every  gate  of  fire. 

"Still  Thy  love,  O  Christ  arisen, 
Yearns  to  reach  these  souls  in  prison ! 
Through  all  depths  of  sin  and  loss 
Drops  the  plummet  of  thy  cross ! 
Never  yet  abyss  was  found 
Deeper  than  that  cross  could  sound! " 

Therefore  well  may  Nature  keep 
Equal  faith  with  all  who  sleep, 

122 


Set  her  watch  of  hills  around 
Christian  grave  and  heathen  mound, 
And  to  cairn  and  kirkyard  send 
Summer's  flowery  dividend. 

It  was  given  to  Whittier  to  see  the  unity 
of  truth.  He  could  never  have  been  a  Calvin- 
ist,  and  I  say  this  without  the  least  disrespect 
for  the  sincere  leader  of  a  great  movement 
which  aimed  to  purify  the  Church,  although, 
from  my  point  of  view,  in  spite  of  the  purity 
of  his  motive,  Calvin  dwelt  in  the  shadow, 
while  Whittier  lived  in  the  sunlight  of 
spirituality.  Calvin  was  naturally  narrow  in 
his  views  ;  Whittier  also  had  his  limitations, 
but  in  the  latter  there  are  an  inspiration  and 
breadth  which  lead  the  soul  upward,  and 
radiate  that  largeness  of  spirit  for  the  want 
of  which  any  civilization  or  religion  must 
wither.  Thus,  in  the  following  lines,*  the 
poet  asserts  a  saving  spaciousness  of  thought 
that,  universally  accepted  and  acted  on, 

*  Miriam. 
123 


would  do  more  than  we  can  comprehend 
toward  advancing  brotherhood  throughout 
the  world : 

Truth  is  one ; 

And,  in  all  lands  beneath  the  sun, 
Whoso  hath  eyes  to  see  may  see 
The  tokens  of  its  unity. 
No  scroll  of  creed  its  fulness  wraps, 
We  trace  it  not  by  school-boy  maps, 
Free  as  the  sun  and  air  it  is 
Of  latitudes  and  boundaries. 
In  Yedic  verse,  in  dull  Koran, 
Are  messages  of  good  to  man; 
The  angels  to  our  Aryan  sires 
Talked  by  the  earliest  household  fires ; 
The  prophets  of  the  elder  day, 
The  slant-eyed  sages  of  Cathay, 
Read  not  the  riddle  all  amiss 
Of  higher  life  evolved  from  this. 


Wherever  through  the  ages  rise 
The  altars  of  self-sacrifice, 
Where  love  its  arms  has  opened  wide, 
Or  man  for  man  has  calmly  died, 
I  see  the  same  white  wings  outspread 
That  hovered  o'er  the  Master's  head  ! 


124 


So  welcome  I  from  every  source 
The  tokens  of  that  primal  Force, 
Older  than  heaven  itself,  yet  new 
As  the  young  heart  it  reaches  to, 
Beneath  whose  steady  impulse  rolls 
The  tidal  wave  of  human  souls ; 
Guide,  comforter,  and  inward  word, 
The  eternal  spirit  of  the  Lord ! 
Nor  fear  I  aught  that  science  brings 
From  searching  through  material  things ; 
Content  to  let  its  glasses  prove, 
Not  by  the  letter's  oldness  move, 
The  myriad  worlds  on  worlds  that  course 
The  spaces  of  the  universe; 
Since  everywhere  the  Spirit  walks 
The  garden  of  the  heart,  and  talks 
With  man,  as  under  Eden's  trees, 
In  all  his  varied  languages. 

As  the  shadows  of  eventide  fell  over  his 
form  the  things  of  life  dropped  more  and 
more  away,  and  the  profound  trust  that  had 
been  his  stay  through  life  filled  his  soul  with 
a  great  calm.  In  a  letter  to  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes,  written  in  1879,  we  find  him  thus 
reiterating  his  convictions  :  "  I  realize  more 
and  more  that  fame  and  notoriety  can  avail 


125 


little  in  our  situation;  that  love  is  the  one 
essential  thing,  always  welcome,  outliving 
time  and  change,  and  going  with  us  into  the 
unguessed  possibilities  of  death.  There  is 
nothing  so  sweet  in  the  old  Bible  as  the 
declaration  that '  God  is  love.'  " 

In  closing  this  sketch  of  the  life  of  a  true 
mystic,  I  cannot  do  better  than  quote  from 
Mrs.  Claflin's  «  Recollections  "  : 

"  If  the  worth  of  a  life  may  be  estimated 
by  the  number  of  hearts  comforted,  the  num 
ber  of  lives  uplifted  and  inspired,  Mr.  Whit- 
tier's  measure  will  exceed  that  of  most  men 
of  this  or  any  other  century.  '  He  has  given 
us  the  poetry  of  human  brotherhood  and 
human  purity.  He  has  given  us  a  Christ-like 
example.  He  has  sung  to  us  of  faith  in  God 
and  immortality.' 

"  The  beautiful  life  finished  its  earthly 
course  on  a  perfect  summer's  morning,  and 
he  entered  the  life  for  which  he  longed. 

126 


His  last  words  were  characteristic.  He  was 
breathing  out  his  life ;  his  eyes  were  closed, 
and  his  friends  stood  around  the  bed  about 
which  had  clustered  so  much  loving  interest, 
waiting  and  watching  for  the  last  look,  or  the 
last  word,  when  he  opened  those  eyes  which 
had  often  seemed  to  look  into  the  mysteries 
of  eternity,  and  said  with  labored  breath, 
'  My  —  love  —  to  —  the  —  world/  ' 

As  we  see  with  broader  vision,  we  appre 
ciate  more  and  more  the  catholicity  of  Whit- 
tier,  and  that  true  spirituality  which  is 
expressed  in  deeds  rather  than  in  creeds — and 
which  is  yet  to  redeem  the  world. 


127 


THE  MAN. 


"  In  the  habit  as  he  lived." 

— Shakespeare. 

"  Like  warp  and  woof  all  destinies 

Are  woven  fast, 

Linked  in  sympathy  like  the  keys 
Of  an  organ  vast. 

"  All  which  is  real  now  remaineth, 

And  fadeth  never  : 

The  hand  which  upholds  it  now  sustaineth 
The  soul  forever." 

— Whittier. 


130 


IV. 


>  HE  life  of  Whittier,  like  that 
of  Emerson,  was  beautiful  in 
its  simplicity  and  naturalness. 
Aside  from  the  conspicuous  absence  of  the 
spectacular  or  dramatic  element  in  his  make 
up,  there  was  a  marked  freedom  from  that 
pernicious  artificiality  which  permeates 
modern  life  and  exalts  the  letter  while  it 
ignores  the  spirit.  The  sincerity  and  trans 
parency  of  his  lif  e  add  greatly  to  the  positive 
inspiration  from  which  posterity  for  ages  to 
come  will  imbibe  high,  fine  truths,  as  from 
a  mighty  limpid  reservoir,  —  truths  which, 
like  the  teachings  of  the  great  Galilean,  are 
so  simply  clad  that  they  appeal  to  the  un 
lettered,  no  less  than  to  the  spiritually  minded 
among  scholars. 

131 


It  is  good  to  draw  very  near  to  such  a 
life,  in  the  same  way  as  it  is  helpful  to 
journey  forth  into  the  country  in  springtime, 
when  Nature  is  awaking,  and  on  every  hand 
one  feels  an  indefinable  uplift  born  of  the 
glory  of  new  life  and  its  promised  fruition. 

Mrs.  Mary  B.  Claflin,  one  of  the  poet's 
most  intimate  friends,  in  writing  of  Whittier 
says : * 

"  With  him  duty  was  commanding,  and 
he  always  kept  before  him  and  acted  upon 
the  idea  that  (  beyond  the  poet's  sweet  dream 
lies  the  eternal  epic  of  the  man.' ' 

It  is  necessary  to  note  here,  however,  that 
after  the  war  of  the  Rebellion  the  poet  ceased 
to  be,  in  a  marked  degree,  an  aggressive 
reformer.  True,  his  instincts  were  ever  on 
the  side  of  justice,  freedom,  and  progress ; 
but  after  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves  he 

*  "  Personal  Recollections  of  Whittier." 
132 


laid  aside  the  warrior's  coat  of  mail  for  the 
quiet  Quaker  garb,  if  I  may  use  these  ob 
jective  terms  to  illustrate  mental  conditions. 
This  has  been  to  me  a  source  of  deep  regret ; 
yet  who  shall  judge,  when  the  point  at  issue 
is  merely  a  conviction  of  what  is  right? 
Moreover,  I  can  well  understand  the  poet's 
feelings,  and  it  is  but  just  that  we  examine 
him  from  his  own  point  of  view  when  dis 
cussing  this  change,  which  so  boldly  con 
trasted  with  the  after  life  of  so  heroic  a  soul 
as  Wendell  Phillips. 

Whittier  had  made  a  noble  sacrifice  when 
he  cheerfully  surrendered  his  cherished 
dream  of  political  preferment  and  literary 
success,  and  cast  in  his  lot  with  the  little 
despised  band  of  abolitionists,  in  conformity 
with  what  he  conceived  to  be  Duty's  august 
demand.  At  the  time  of  this  great  renuncia 
tion  no  epithets  were  too  abusive,  no  ridicule 
was  too  cutting,  no  slander  or  calumny  too 
gross  to  be  meted  out  by  easy-going  conven- 

133 


tionalists  to  the  little  band  who  seemed  to 
be  in  a  hopeless  minority,  but  who  bravely 
stood  "  on  duty's  vantage  ground."  After 
his  decision  had  been  deliberately  made  he 
fought  valiantly  nor  faltered  once,  until  the 
great  cause  to  which  he  had  consecrated  his 
best  energies  was  won,  and  the  despised 
and  persecuted  minority  became  illustrious 
in  the  eyes  of  the  majority. 

Then,  and  not  till  then,  the  strong  desire 
for  peace  and  rest,  and  an  intense  longing  to 
be  able  to  ascend  the  mountain  beyond  the 
range  of  the  fierce  tumult  below,  over 
mastered  the  aggressive  spirit  which  was 
peculiarly  prominent  in  the  early  years  of 
Whittier's  life.  Moreover,  it  must  not  be 
forgotten  that  he  was  at  once  reformer  and 
Quaker ;  the  traditions  of  his  people  and  a 
strong  inward  desire  led  him  to  seek  that 
repose  which  aids  in  the  development  of 
spirituality.  If  Whittier  had  in  him  much 
of  the  crusader,  he  also  possessed  in  a  large 

134 


way  the  soul  which  has  ever  dominated  the 
oriental  mystics  and  sages ;  indeed,  the 
blending  of  these  two  elements  in  him  was 
very  marked.  From  his  soul  could  flash 
that  divine  indignation  which  must  have  lit 
up  Jesus'  eyes  when  he  overturned  the  tables 
of  the  money  changers  who  had  taken  pos 
session  of  his  Father's  temple  ;  and  yet  few 
natures  so  yearned  for  peace  and  harmony, 
found  only  on  the  sunlit  mountain  peaks  of 
love.  From  his  luminous  heart  flowed  the 
spirit  of  divine  gentleness,  compassion,  and 
love  of  humanity,  which  was  voiced  in  so 
characteristic  an  expression  as  his  dying 
message,  no  less  than  in  such  typical  lines 
as  the  following  taken  from  his  poem  en 
titled  "  Worship  " : 

O  brother  man  !  fold  to  thy  heart  thy  brother; 

Where  pity  dwells,  the  peace  of  God  is  there; 
To  worship  rightly  is  to  love  each  other, 

Each  smile  a  hymn,  each  kindly  deed  a  prayer. 


135 


Love  shall  tread  out  the  baleful  fire  of  anger, 
And  in  its  ashes  plant  the  tree  of  peace  ! 

And  in  these  typical  stanzas  from  a  poem 
written  to  be  read  at  the  levee  given  by  the 
president  of  Brown  University,  June  29, 
1870: 

I  touched  the  garment-hem  of  truth, 
Yet  saw  not  all  its  splendor. 


And  slowly  learns  the  world  the  truth 
That  makes  us  all  thy  debtor, 

That  holy  life  is  more  than  writ, 
And  spirit  more  than  letter. 


For  truth's  worst  foe  is  he  who  claims 

To  act  as  God's  avenger, 
And  deems,  beyond  his  sentry  beat, 

The  crystal  walls  in  danger. 

There  is  another  fact  which  should  be 
remembered  when  we  are  considering  the 
change  which  marks  Whittier  as  the  prophet 
of  freedom  on  the  one  hand  and  the  poet  of 
the  inner  light  on  the  other,  and  that  is 

136 


his  almost  incessant  invalidism — insomnia 
and  neuralgia  were  the  poet's  familiar  com 
panions.  After  a  sleepless  night  he  was 
often  heard  to  say  to  his  intimate  friends  in 
his  quaint  and  semi-humorous  way,  "  It  is  of 
no  use  ;  the  sleep  of  the  innocent  is  denied 
me  ;  perhaps  I  do  not  deserve  it." 

But  it  is  not  my  present  purpose  to  notice 
Whittier  psychologically  so  much  as  to  view 
him  "  in  the  habit  as  he  lived ; "  and,  there 
fore,  passing  over  this  profoundly  interesting 
study,  we  come  to  view  him  in  his  home  life. 

Few  men  have  ever  so  thoroughly  enjoyed 

*  One  who  has  suffered  as  did  Whittier  can  readily  see 
how  a  soul  constituted  like  his  would  yearn  for  peace  and 
rest. 

This  chronic  invalidism,  while  it  frequently  rendered  it 
impossible  for  him  to  enjoy  intercourse  with  kindred  souls 
and  prevented  him  from  attending  public  gatherings  in 
which  he  felt  a  deep  interest,  failed  to  mar  his  sweet  dis 
position,  or  to  ruffle  the  calm  of  a  soul  at  once  so  profoundly 
spiritual  and  yet  so  thoroughly  human  as  was  his.  What 
would  have  embittered  most  persons  only  seemed  to  add  to 
the  serenity  of  his  spirit. 

137 


the  companionship  of  their  friends  as  did 
our  Quaker  poet,  and  had  his  health  per 
mitted  he  doubtless  would  have  found 
in  social  intercourse  much  pleasure  which 
under  existing  circumstances  was  denied 
him. 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  was  a  great  favor 
ite  of  Whittier,  although  their  visits  to  each 
other  were  necessarily  infrequent.  On  one 
occasion,  described  by  Mrs.  Claflin,  when  the 
poet  and  philosopher  were  out  driving,  Emer 
son  pointed  out  a  small  unpainted  house  by 
the  roadside  and  said,  "  There  lives  an  old 
Calvinist  in  that  house,  and  she  prays  for 
me  every  day.  I  am  glad  she  does.  I  pray 
for  myself."  "  Does  thee  ?  "  said  Whittier. 
"  What  does  thee  pray  for,  friend  Emerson  ?  " 
"  Well,"  replied  Emerson,  "  when  I  first 
open  my  eyes  upon  the  beautiful  world,  I 
thank  God  that  I  am  alive  and  that  I  live  so 
near  Boston."  On  another  occasion  Whit- 
tier  was  telling  Emerson  of  an  original  and 

138 


somewhat  remarkable  farmer  whom  he  knew. 
The  great  transcendentalist  became  much 
interested  and  remarked,  "  That  man  would 
enjoy  Plato."  At  a  later  date  Emerson  sent 
the  poet  a  copy  of  Plato  to  be  loaned  to  his 
friend.  On  returning  it  the  farmer  expressed 
the  satisfaction  he  had  derived  from  the 
volume,  adding  that  "  that  Mr.  Plato  has  a 
good  many  of  my  idees." 

Longfellow,  Lowell,  and  Nathaniel  Haw 
thorne  were  among  other  distinguished  liter 
ary  contemporaries  whose  friendship  Mr. 
Whittier  greatly  prized.  With  the  latter, 
who  it  will  be  remembered  was  a  man  of 
moods,  Whittier  related  to  Mrs.  Claflin  the 
following  personal  experience,  which,  though 
humorous  to  the  reader,  must  have  been  ex 
ceedingly  embarrassing  to  the  poet  at  the 
time  :  "  Thee  knows,"  said  Whittier,  "  I  am 
not  versed  in  small  talk ;  but  I  wanted  to 
make  a  friendly  call  on  Hawthorne,  and  one 
morning  (it  chanced  to  be  an  ill-fated  morn- 

139 


ing  for  this  purpose)  I  sallied  forth,  and  on 
reaching  the  house  was  ushered  into  a  lugu 
brious-looking  room,  where  Hawthorne  met 
me,  evidently  in  a  lugubrious  state  of  mind. 
In  a  rather  sepulchral  tone  of  voice  he  bade 
me  good-morning,  and  asked  me  to  be  seated 
opposite  him,  and  we  looked  at  each  other 
and  remarked  upon  the  weather.  Then 
came  an  appalling  silence,  and  the  cold  chills 
crept  down  my  back.  After  a  few  moments 
I  said,  '  I  think  I  will  take  a  short  walk.'  I 
took  my  walk,  and  returned  and  bade  him 
good-morning,  much  to  my  relief,  and  I  have 
no  doubt  to  his." 

Whittier  was  a  man  of  strong  soul-friend 
ships.  Many  of  his  dearest  friends  (such  as 
John  Bright,  for  example)  he  loved  through 
spiritual  kinship,  although  not  enjoying  per 
sonal  acquaintance,  and  it  is  safe  to  say  that 
all  over  the  world  the  humble  and  unpre 
tentious  singer  of  New  England  was  loved 
as  a  brother,  counsellor,  and  friend.  In  this 


140 


connection  Mrs.  Claflin  has  recorded  a  de 
lightful  episode  relating  to  the  meeting  of 
Dom  Pedro  and  Whittier  in  the  following 
words : 

"When  Dom  Pedro,  the  Emperor  of 
Brazil,  was  visiting  Boston,  he  was  invited 
one  morning  to  a  private  parlor  to  meet 
some  of  the  men  who  have  made  this  city 
famous  in  the  world  of  letters.  As  one  after 
another  was  presented  to  him,  he  received 
each  one  graciously,  but  without  enthusiasm. 
But  when  Mr.  Whittier's  name  was  an 
nounced  his  face  suddenly  lighted  up,  and 
grasping  the  poet's  hand,  he  made  a  gesture 
as  though  he  would  embrace  him,  but  seeing 
that  to  be  contrary  to  the  custom  of  the 
Friends,  he  passed  his  arm  through  that  of 
Mr.  Whittier,  and  drew  him  gently  to  a 
corner,  where  he  remained  with  him  absorbed 
in  conversation,  until  the  time  came  to  leave. 
The  Emperor,  taking  the  poet's  hand  in  both 

141 


his  own  again,  bade  him  a  reluctant  farewell, 
and  turned  to  leave  the  room,  but,  still  un 
satisfied,  was  heard  to  say,  (  Come  with  me/ 
and  they  passed  slowly  down  the  staircase, 
his  arm  around  Mr.  Whittier." 

It  seems  to  have  been  one  of  the  "  ironies 
of  fate  "  that  Whittier,  the  home-lover  and 
a  man  preeminently  domestic  in  his  tastes, 
should  have  been  denied  the  companionship 
of  a  congenial  wife.  Many  have  been  the 
romances  hinted  at  and  which  have  been  al 
leged  to  have  entered  into  his  early  life. 
Probably  the  one  best  authenticated  appeared 
some  time  after  the  poet's  death  in  that 
strictly  edited  daily,  the  Republican,  of 
Springfield,  Massachusetts ;  although  I  have 
found  it  impossible  to  absolutely  verify  the 
authenticity  of  the  story,  it  is  so  probable  as 
well  as  so  interesting,  that  I  give  it  below  as 
it  appeared  under  the  title  of  "  Whittier's 
Secret  "  : 


142 


"The  residence  of  eighteen  months  in 
Hartford  introduced  him  to  a  vigorous  anti- 
slavery  circle  of  higher  culture  and  a  more 
delicate  refinement  than  any  he  had  known, 
and  within  that  circle,  incarnated  in  a  most 
lovely  woman,  he  was  to  find  his  fate. 

"  Among  the  friends  the  biographer  has 
mentioned  Judge  Russ,  a  man  well  known  in 
that  day  for  brilliant  parts  and  a  handsome 
person.  The  family  was  distinguished  for 
beauty  and  brightness.  Of  those  members 
whom  Whittier  knew,  Mary,  the  oldest, 
married  Silas  E.  Burrowes.  Mrs.  Burrowes 
died  of  consumption  in  New  York  in  1841, 
at  the  age  of  thirty-four.  There  survived 
only  an  unmarried  daughter,  Cornelia,  and 
one  son,  Charles  James  Russ,  who  twenty 
years  later  was  a  prominent  lawyer  in  Hart 
ford. 

"  Cornelia,  the  youngest  child,  born  in 
1814,  was  but  seventeen  years  old  when  she 
parted  from  Whittier  in  1831.  He  was 

143 


twenty-four.  The  strong  anti-slavery  zeal  of 
the  family  threw  the  two  young  people  much 
together,  and  the  clear  brain  and  tender 
heart  of  the  poet  yielded  to  very  uncommon 
charms.  One  who  saw  her  during  the  last 
year  of  her  life  describes  her  in  this 
way  : 

" '  At  twenty-eight  Cornelia  was  a  most 
beautiful  woman.  She  had  dark  blue  eyes, 
like  pansies,  with  long,  dark  lashes,  black 
hair,  and  the  most  exquisite  color.  If  she 
was  like  the  rest  of  the  family,  she  was  a 
very  brilliant  woman.' 

"  Judge  Russ,  who  was  a  member  of  Con 
gress  in  1820,  had  died  in  1832.  Of  this 
Whittier  probably  heard  through  his  friend 
Law,  but  that  he  ever  heard  of  the  death  of 
Mary  Burro wes  or  Cornelia  there  is  no  evi 
dence.  When  he  was  writing  his  letter  of 
sympathy  to  the  friends  of  Lucy  Hooper, 
Cornelia  was  lying  on  her  deathbed.  She 
had  nursed  her  sister  through  her  fatal  ill- 


144 


ness,  had  imbibed  the  poison,  and  followed 
her  in  the  April  of  1842. 

"  The  poem  called  '  Memories/  to  which 
Whittier  attributed  a  special  significance, 
was  written  during  Cornelia's  last  illness.  He 
thinks  of  her  as  still  bright  and  living,  and 
when  in  1888  he  desired  the  poem  to  be 
placed  at  the  head  of  his  subjective  verse, 
his  heart  was  still  true  to  her,  but  gave  no 
token  that  he  knew  hers  had  ceased  to  beat. 

"  After  Cornelia's  death  her  papers  passed 
into  the  hands  of  the  only  surviving  member 
of  her  family,  Charles  James  Russ,  who  died 
in  1861.  At  that  time  her  private  letters 
came  into  the  hands  of  his  widow,  who  de 
stroyed  most  of  them,  but  kept,  from  pure 
love  of  the  poet,  the  precious  pages  in  which 
Whittier  had  offered  himself  to  her  kins 
woman.  I  have  not  myself  read  the  letter, 
which  is  still  in  existence,  but  one  who  has 
read  it,  the  present  possessor,  writes  me  as 
follows  :  '  The  letter  was  short,  simple,  and 

10  145 


manly,  as  you  would  know.  He  evidently 
expected  to  call  next  day  and  learn  his  fate.' 
Another  who  has  seen  the  letter  writes :  t  It 
was  somewhat  stiff — such  a  letter  as  a  shy 
Quaker  lad  would  be  likely  to  write,  for  that 
he  was  in  spite  of  his  genius.  He  begged 
her,  if  she  felt  unable  to  return  his  affection, 
to  keep  his  secret,  for  he  said,  '  My  respect 
and  affection  for  you  are  so  great  that  I 
could  not  survive  the  mortification  if  your 
refusal  were  known.' 

"  Cornelia  Russ  was  sought  in  marriage  by 
several  distinguished  persons,  but  she  died 
unmarried  and  she  kept  Whittier's  secret. 
His  poem  suggests  that  the  stern  creed  of 
Calvin  held  them  apart — a  thing  very  likely 
to  happen  in  Connecticut  half  a  century  ago ; 
but  if  he  had  known  that  she  had  changed 
her  early  connections  for  the  more  liberal 
associations  of  the  Church  of  England  he 
would  have  seen  more  distinctly  '  that  shadow 
of  himself  in  her  '  of  which  the  poem  speaks. 

146 


"  Those  who  are  familiar  with  '  Memories ' 
will  recall  the  c  hazel  eyes '  and  *  light  brown 
hair '  which  it  commemorates,  and  fancy  per 
haps  that  there  is  some  mistake.  It  is  not 
likely  that  Whittier  forgot  the  color  of  Cor 
nelia's  eyes  or  hair.  In  some  effusive  moment 
he  had  shown  the  poem  to  James  T.  Fields 
and  Edwin  P.  Whipple.  In  1850,  when 
Cornelia  had  been  dead  eight  years,  they 
wished  to  publish  it,  and  he  was  very  reluc 
tant.  He  had  not  outgrown  his  early  passion, 
and  before  it  was  printed  he  undoubtedly 
changed  a  few  descriptive  words  to  screen 
the  truth,  it  may  be  from  Cornelia  herself. 
She  never  saw  it,  but  I  think  he  died  believ 
ing  that  she  had. 

"  Rumors  of  this  story  reached  me  long 
ago,  but  I  would  not  print  a  mere  surmise, 
and  by  long  and  devious  ways  leading 
through  probate  offices  and  town  registers, 
through  church  records  and  private  papers, 
in  a  varied  correspondence  that  has  occupied 

147 


two  months,  have  I  followed  the  story  as  I 
tell  it." 

Although  denied  a  wife,  Whittier  enjoyed 
for  a  long  period  the  very  intimate  compan 
ionship  of  his  best-beloved  sister,  as  well  as 
the  association  of  some  other  members  of  the 
little  group  who  composed  the  home  circle 
when  he  was  "  a  barefoot  boy."  For  his 
sister  Elizabeth,  however,  he  ever  cherished 
the  deepest  affection.  She  had  poetic  talent 
and  was  a  keen  as  well  as  a  sympathetic  critic. 
Early  in  the  autumn  of  1864  this  sister  passed 
upward,  and  in  a  letter  to  Lucy  Larcom  dated 
Sept.  3,  1864,  the  poet  wrote :  * 

"  I  feel  it  difficult  even  now  to  realize  all 
I  have  lost.  But  I  sorrow  without  repining, 
and  with  a  feeling  of  calm  submission  to  the 
will  which  I  am  sure  is  best.  If  I  can  help 

*  "  John  Greenleaf  Whittier  ;   Life  and  Letters."     By 
S.  T.  Pickard.     Yol.  ii.,  p.  480. 

148 


it,  I  do  not  intend  the  old  homestead  to  be 
gloomy  and  forbidding  through  my  selfish 
regrets.  She  would  not  have  it  so.  She 
would  wish  it  cheerful  with  the  '  old  familiar 
faces '  of  the  friends  whom  she  loved  and 
still  loves.  I  hope  thee  and  other  friends 
will  feel  the  same  freedom  to  visit  me  as 
heretofore." 

In  October  of  the  same  year,  Whittier 
wrote  Grace  Greenwood  the  following  letter 
which  brings  us  very  near  to  the  heart  of 
the  poet :  * 

"  My  dear  sister's  illness  was  painful  and 
most  distressing,  yet  she  was  patient,  loving, 
and  cheerful  even  to  the  last.  How  much  I 
miss  her !  how  much  less  I  have  now  to  live 
for !  But  she  is  at  rest.  Surely,  few  needed 
it  or  deserved  it  more,  if  it  were  proper  to 
speak  of  deserve  in  that  connection.  A 

•Ibid.    Vol.  ii.,  pp.  481,  482. 
149 


pure,  generous,  loving  spirit  was  hers.  I 
shall  love  all  her  friends  better  for  her  sake. 
The  autumn  woods  are  exceedingly  beautiful 
at  this  time.  I  miss  dear  Elizabeth  to  enjoy 
them  with  me.  I  wonder  sometimes  that  I 
can  be  cheerful  and  attend  to  my  daily 
duties,  since  life  has  lost  so  much  of  its 
object.  But  I  have  still  many  blessings — 
kind  friends  and  books,  and  the  faith  that 
God  is  good,  and  good  only." 

Running  through  many  of  Whittier's 
letters  is  a  strain  of  quiet  humor,  an  example 
of  which  is  given  by  Mr.  Pickard  in  the  fol 
lowing  passage  : 

"  There  was  a  report  abroad  early  in  '67 
that  Whittier  was  about  to  marry.  He 
refers  to  this  in  a  letter  to  Lucy  Larcom  of 
March  16.  '  Credulity !  thy  name  is  woman. 
So  thee  believed  that  report  almost  ?  Well, 
it  may  be  true,  but  the  first  intimation  of  it 

150 


came  to  me  through  the  newspapers.  They 
ought  to  know.  I  can't  imagine  how  the 
report  was  started.  It  vexed  me,  but  of 
course  there  was  no  help  for  it.  It  is  the 
cruelest  irony  to  congratulate  a  hopeless  old 
bachelor,  within  one  year  of  sixty,  on  such 
prospects.  I  don't  know  about  this  <  freedom 
of  the  press.' ' 

To  another  correspondent  who  had  written 
him  in  regard  to  the  same  matter,  the  poet 
replied : 

"  The  idea  of  offering  matrimonial  congra 
tulations  to  a  hopeless  old  bachelor  trying  to 
thread  a  needle  to  sew  on  his  buttons  !  As 
well  talk  of  agility  to  a  cripple  or  a  rise  of 
government  stocks  to  a  town  pauper.  Of 
course  thee  did  not  believe  this  silly  story. 
I  don't  care  much  about  it,  but  I  should  be 
sorry  to  have  to  read  congratulations  upon  it 
by  every  mail.  I  wish  the  newspaper  scamp 

151 


who  started  it  nothing  worse  than  to  be  an 
old  bachelor  like  myself  or  to  have  a  wife 
like  Mrs.  Caudle." 

Few  persons  outside  the  poet's  circle  of 
friends  knew  that  he  was  color-blind.  His 
biographer  thus  refers  to  this  defect : 

"  Mr.  Whittier  had  the  misfortune  to  be 
color-blind  in  respect  to  the  shades  of  red 
and  green.  But  he  thought  he  had  an  un 
usual  appreciation  of  the  yellows  which  fully 
compensated  him  for  this  defect.  He  saw  no 
difference  in  color  between  a  red  apple  and 
the  leaves  of  a  tree  upon  which  it  was  grow 
ing.  It  was  only  the  white  or  yellow  rose 
that  had  for  him  any  beauty  except  of  form. 
He  thought  he  enjoyed  the  splendors  of  an 
autumn  landscape  in  a  wooded  country  as 
much  as  the  ordinary  observer,  especially  if 
there  was  a  fair  admixture  of  yellow  foliage. 
When  he  brought  home  bouquets  of  leaves 


it  was  noticeable  that  yellow  greatly  pre 
dominated.  Perhaps  his  preference  for  the 
golden-rod  as  the  national  flower  was  partly 
due  to  its  color.  His  mother  discovered  this 
optical  defect,  when  as  a  little  boy  he  was 
picking  wild  strawberries.  He  could  see  no 
difference  between  the  color  of  the  berry  and 
the  leaf.  '  I  have  always  thought  the  rainbow 
beautiful,'  he  once  said  with  an  amused  smile, 
'  but  they  tell  me  I  have  never  seen  it.  Its 
only  color  to  me  is  yellow.'  A  reddish  brown 
book  was  handed  him  on  the  cover  of  which 
were  lines  of  bright  scarlet,  and  he  was  asked 
to  tell  the  colors  as  he  saw  them.  He  thought 
the  book  was  a  dark  yellow,  and  the  scarlet 
lines  stood  out  to  him  as  bright  yellow." 

As  with  other  lives,  he  who  studies  that  of 
Whittier  will  constantly  come  across  facts 
which  are  perplexing.  In  his  opinions  he 
was  what  his  friends  termed  "  firm,"  his  critics 
"  set,"  and  his  enemies  (for  in  the  aggressive 

153 


period  of  his  life  he  made  foes)  "  stubborn." 
Then,  again,  there  was  present  that  strange 
inward  struggle  between  the  Puritan  and 
Quaker,  the  "  Peter  and  the  John,"  the  occi 
dental  and  the  oriental.  He  was  by  turns  a 
shrewd  and  somewhat  narrow  New  Englander, 
and  at  other  times  a  broad  idealist  and  mystic. 
Yet,  with  all  this,  his  life  was  so  pure,  trans 
parent,  and  noble  in  purpose,  and  permeated 
with  so  childlike  a  simplicity,  that  the  outgush 
of  his  soul  best  mirrored  the  man.  Thus  in 
his  letters  and  poems  we  gain  a  fine  insight 
into  the  character  of  the  poet.  His  remark 
able  self-control  in  later  years  was  due  to 
self-mastery.  Mr.  Pickard  observes: 

"It  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that 
gentleness  was  a  necessity  of  his  nature;  it 
was  in  reality  the  result  of  resolute  self-con 
trol  and  the  habitual  government  of  a  tem 
pestuous  spirit.  He  was  quick  and  nervous 
in  movement,  but  never  otherwise  than  dig- 

154 


nified  and  graceful.  In  conversation  he 
spoke  slowly  and  with  precision,  hesitating 
occasionally  without  the  slightest  nervous 
ness  for  the  word  he  wanted.  This  must 
have  been  the  result  of  his  habit  of  self- 
restraint,  which  became  his  second  nature. 
He  religiously  curbed  his  tongue,  and  said 
of  himself  that  he  was  born  without  an  atom 
of  patience  in  his  composition,  but  that  he 
had  tried  to  manufacture  it  as  needed." 

Perhaps  few  men  of  so  fine  and  lofty  im 
pulses  have  ever  felt  more  keenly  their  short 
comings  than  did  Whittier.  In  a  letter  to  a 
friend  written  in  1879  he  uses  these  touch- 
ingly  frank  expressions : 

"  I  have  been  looking  over  my  life,  and  the 
survey  has  not  been  encouraging.  Alas  !  if 
I  have  been  a  servant  at  all  I  have  been  an 
unprofitable  one,  and  yet  I  have  loved  good 
ness,  and  longed  to  bring  my  imaginative 

155 


poetic  temperament  into  true  subjection.  I 
stand  ashamed  and  almost  despairing  before 
holy  and  pure  ideals." 

Other  mental  states  are  shadowed  forth 
quite  as  forcibly  in  various  stanzas  of  which 
the  following  is  a  fair  example  : 

Better  to  stem  with  heart  and  hand 
The  roaring  tide  of  life,  than  lie, 
Unmindful,  on  its  flowery  strand, 
Of  God's  occasions  drifting  by; 
Better  with  naked  nerve  to  bear 
The  needles  of  this  goading  air, 
Than  in  the  lap  of  sensual  ease  forego 
The  godlike  power  to  do,  the  godlike  aim  to  know. 

And  again  the  following  paraphrase  of 
a  Sanscrit  maxim,  entitled  "  The  Inward 
Judge,"  reveals  the  firm  conviction  of  the 
poet: 

The  soul  itself  its  awful  witness  is. 

Say  not  in  evil  doing  "  No  one  sees," 

And  so  offend  the  conscious  One  within, 

Whose  ear  can  hear  the  silences  of  sin 

Ere  they  find  voice,  whose  eyes  unsleeping  see 

The  secret  motions  of  iniquity. 


156 


Nor  in  thy  folly  say  "  I  am  alone." 
For,  seated  in  thy  heart,  as  on  a  throne, 
The  ancient  Judge  and  Witness  liveth  still, 
To  note  thy  act  and  thought  :  and  as  thy  ill 
Or  good  goes  from  thee,  far  beyond  thy  reach, 
The  solemn  doomsman's  seal  is  set  on  each. 

Another  glimpse  of  the  true  poet  and  man 
is  found  in  these  lines  from  "  At  Last "  : 

When  on  my  day  of  life  the  night  is  falling, 
And,  in  the  winds  from  unsunned  spaces  blown, 

I  hear  far  voices  out  of  darkness  calling 
My  feet  to  paths  unknown, 

Thou  who  hast  made  my  home  of  life  so  pleasant, 
Leave  not  its  tenant  when  its  walls  decay; 

O  Love  Divine,  O  Helper  ever  present, 
Be  Thou  my  strength  and  stay ! 

#  #  #  #  # 

Some  humble  door  among  Thy  many  mansions, 
Some  sheltering  shade  where  sin  and  striving  cease, 

And  flows  forever  through  heaven's  green  expansions 
The  river  of  Thy  peace. 

There,  from  the  music  round  about  me  stealing, 
I  fain  would  learn  the  new  and  holy  song, 

And  find  at  last,  beneath  Thy  trees  of  healing, 
The  life  for  which  I  long. 

His  strong  faith   in  God,  in  man,  and  in 

157 


the  future  is  a  very  striking  characteristic  of 
Whittier.  It  tinges  his  poems  and  lights  up 
his  personal  letters  as  the  sun  lights  the  pass 
ing  cloud  with  splendor.  Thus,  in  a  letter 
to  Lucy  Larcom  we  find  this  strong  convic 
tion  : 

"  As  we  glide  down  the  autumnal  slopes 
of  life  how  the  shadows  lengthen  and  deepen, 
but '  in  the  even-time  there  shall  be  light/ 
*  Death/  said  the  heathen  stoic/  is  according  to 
nature,  and  nothing  is  evil  which  is  according 
to  nature/  and  there  is  deep  wisdom  and  con 
solation  in  his  saying.  But  as  Christians  our 
trust  is  not  alone  in  the  steady  sequence  of 
nature,  but  in  the  tender  heart  of  our  Father 
and  the  infinite  love  revealed  in  His  human 
manifestation." 

And  again  this  same  lofty  faith  is  found 
in  these  exquisite  stanzas  among  other  pieces : 

O  golden  age,  whose  light  is  of  the  dawn, 
And  not  of  sunset,  forward,  not  behind, 

158 


Flood  the  new  heavens  and  earth,  and  with  thee  bring 

All  the  old  virtues,  whatsoever  things 

Are  pure  and  honest  and  of  good  repute, 

But  add  thereto  whatever  bard  has  sung 

Or  seer  has  told  of,  when  in  trance  and  dream 

They  saw  the  happy  isles  of  prophecy ! 

Let  justice  hold  her  scale,  and  truth  divide 

Between  the  right  and  wrong;  but  give  the  heart 

The  freedom  of  its  fair  inheritance. 

Let  the  poor  prisoner,  cramped  and  starved  so  long, 

At  nature's  table  feast  his  ear  and  eye 

With  joy  and  wonder;  let  all  harmonies 

Of  sound,  form,  color,  motion,  wait  upon 

The  princely  guest,  whether  in  soft  attire 

Of  leisure  clad,  or  the  coarse  frock  of  toil, 

And,  lending  life  to  the  dead  form  of  faith, 

Give  human  nature  reverence  for  the  sake 

Of  One  who  bore  it,  making  it  divine 

With  the  ineffable  tenderness  of  God. 

Let  common  need,  the  brotherhood  of  prayer, 

The  heirship  of  an  unknown  destiny, 

The  unsolved  mystery  round  about  us,  make 

A  man  more  precious  than  the  gold  of  Ophir, 

Sacred,  inviolate,  unto  whom  all  things 

Should  minister,  as  outward  types  and  signs 

Of  the  eternal  beauty  which  fulfils 

The  one  great  purpose  of  creation,  love, 

The  sole  necessity  of  earth  and  heaven. 

It  has  been  observed  that  every  one  puts 

159 


much  of  himself  into  his  work,  and  this  is 
peculiarly  true  of  a  life  so  transparent  and 
simple  as  that  of  Whittier.  Thus,  I  think 
that  nowhere  can  we  come  into  closer  relation 
ship  to  the  real  man  than  by  a  careful  perusal 
of  his  works.  His  familiar  form  has  left  us. 
His  benign  smile  is  no  more  seen,  even  among 
the  small  circle  of  his  loved  friends  and  com 
panions  ;  but  his  fine  thoughts,  his  inspiring 
words,  which  reveal  his  real  worth  as  well  as 
the  divine  mind,  remain  to  inspire,  strengthen, 
and  ennoble  the  present  generation  and  those 
that  are  to  come,  while  the  remembrance  that 
his  was  a  pure  life,  devoid  of  the  feverish 
artificiality  which  so  marks  our  occidental 
civilization,  lends  additional  force  to  his  lofty 
thoughts.  The  life  and  work  of  one  like 
Whittier  are  an  inestimable  blessing  to  man 
kind,  and  his  influence  will  continue  forages 
to  come,  for  his  thought  was  at  once  per 
meated  with  love  and  in  alignment  with 
freedom,  justice,  and  progress. 

160 


Gerald  Massey : 


Poet, 

Prophet,  and 
Mystic. 

-*  ~~~~j.  of  the  life  and  thought  of 
England's  Poet  of  the  People. 

BY    B.    O.    I 


ILLUSTRATED  BY  LAURA  LEE. 


CRITICAL   PRESS   OPINIONS. 

Mr.  B.  O.  Flower's  latest  work  is  a  scholarly  discussion  of  the 
life  and  work  of  Massey,  poet,  prophet,  and  mystic.  One  of  the 
feature  chapters  is  that  in  which  the  author  traces  the  points  of 
resemblance  between  Massey  and  Whittier.  There  are  frequent 
quotations  from  the  poet,  but  they  are  none  too  frequent,  since  they 
reveal  to  us  the  inner  life  of  the  man. — Daily  Advertiser,  Boston, 
Mass. 

A  most  appreciative  and  tender  tribute  to  one  of  England's  lesser 
but  noble  song  writers.  No  such  presentation  of  the  poet's  charac 
ter  and  work  has  yet  been  seen  on  this  side  the  water. — Daily 
Traveler,  Boston,  Mass. 

A  handsome  volume,  both  in  print  and  illustrations,  which  presents 
briefly,  but  pointedly,  the  life  and  work  of  Gerald  Massey.  Our 
author  finds  a  striking  resemblance  between  Massey  and  our  own 
loved  Quaker  poet,  Whittier.  Both  were  tireless  reformers,  "pas' 
sionately  in  love  with  the  beauty  in  common  life."  Both  hated 
injustice  with  all  their  powers  of  mind,  with  prophetic  and  intuitive 
insight  as  to  coming  events.  They  both  "  revealed  beauties  within 
and  without  the  homes  of  the  humble,"  and  were  fearless  in  denun 
ciation  of  wrong-doing.  The  work  is  handsomely  illustrated,  but 
the  text  alone  makes  it  an  interesting  and  even  charming  book.  Mr- 
Flower  makes  free  quotations  from  the  gems  of  many  of  Massey's 
inspiring  songs,  and  brings  out  admirably  the  leading  traits  of 
character  that  shaped  his  life  and  inspired  his  writing.  —  Daily 
Inter-Ocean,  Chicago,  III. 

Price,  extra  cloth,  gilt  side  and  back  dies,  $1.00. 

Arena  Publishing  Co.,         -         Boston,  Mass. 


Civilization's  Inferno 

OR, 

Studies  in  the  Social  Cellar. 


By  B.  O.  FLOWER. 


This  work  contains  vivid  pen  pictures  of  the  social  cellar  as  Mr. 
Flower  found  it,  and  is  one  of  the  most  fearless  and  able  presenta 
tions  of  the  condition  of  society's  exiles  which  has  ever  been  made. 

It  carries  the  reader  into  the  social  cellar  where  uninvited  poverty 
abounds,  and  from  there  into  the  sub-cellar,  or  the  world  of  the 
criminal  poor. 

It  is  rich  in  suggestive  hints,  and  should  be  in  the  hands  of  every 
thoughtful  man  and  woman  in  America. 

Absorbingly  interesting  and  at  times  thrilling,  no  one  can  read  its 
pages  without  being  made  better  for  the  perusal. 

CRITICAL  OPINION  FROM  REPRESENTATIVE  AMERICAN 
JOURNALS. 

It  is  a  truthful  and  graphic  delineation  of  the  condition  of  the  people  in  the  social 
nndertow.  Mr.  Flower  has  a  keen  and  profound  sympathy  with  the  difficulties  that 
the  poor  are  laboring  under,  and  he  describes  what  he  has  seen  with  his  own  eyes  in 
terms  that  chill  one's  blood.  He  does  not  hesitate  to  call  things  by  their  right 
names,  and  points  out  the  magnitude  of  the  peril,  showing  that  no  palliative  meas 
ures  will  satisfy  the  people.  —  Daily  Herald,  Boston,  Mass. 

Society,  as  it  is  now  constituted,  is  nothing  less  than  a  sleeping  volcano.  Who 
dares  to  say  how  soon  the  upheaval  will  come,  or  whether  it  can  be  evaded  by  the 
adoption  of  prompt  measures  of  relief?  Certainly  the  condition  of  the  lower  social 
strata  calls  for  immediate  action  on  the  part  of  those  whose  safety  is  at  stake.  Mr. 
Flower  has  accomplished  a  great  work  in  setting  forth  the  exact  truth  of  the  matter, 
without  any  effort  at  palliation.  It  will  be  well,  indeed,  for  the  prosperous  classes 
of  the  community  if  they  are  warned  in  time.  —  Boston  Beacon,  Boston,  Mass. 

A  thoughtful  work  by  a  thoughtful  man,  and  should  turn  the  minds  of  many  who 
are  now  ignorant  or  careless  to  the  condition  of  the  countless  thousands  who  live  in 
the  "social  cellar."  No  one  can  read  the  book  without  feeling  that  the  author's 
diagnosis  of  the  case  is  true  and  gives  each  one  his  own  personal  responsibility. — 
Courier-Journal,  Louisville,  Ky* 

What  General  Booth  has  done  for  London,  and  Mr.  Jacob  Riis  for  New  York, 
Mr.  Flower  has  done  for  cultured  Boston.  He  is  a  professional  man  of  letters, 
and  tells  his  story  with  the  skill  and  knack  of  his  craft. — Daily  Constitution, 
Atlanta,  Ga. 

Cloth,  81.0O.       Paper,  50  cents. 

Arena  Publishing  Co.,         -         Boston,  Mass. 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 


RENEWED  BOOKS  ARE  SUBJECT  TO  IMMEDIATE 
RECALL 


RET.  M  1?1966 


LIBRARY,  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  DAVIS 

Book  Slip-50m-12,'64(F772s4)458 


369371 


Flower,   B.O. 

Whittier:  prophet, 
seer  and  man. 


PS3281 
F6 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF   CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


